Of Egg Rolls and Marshmallows
by tennesseegirl
Summary: Miley recruits Oliver to pose as her boyfriend in order to run off an obsessed Hannah fan. What she didn't plan was everything that happened after that. MileyOliver.
1. Chapter 1

Part One 

"Hannah!" Lilly hissed in my ear. "Hannah, where's your lipstick?"

"Uh…in my purse."

"Get it out! Get it out! Quick!"

I frowned at her. "What? Cherry Berry isn't working for you tonight?"

"No!" She grabbed my purse and rummaged through it. "I mean, yes. I mean…ahah!" She waved my lipstick in the air. "Quick, put it on! You're fading."

"I'm _what_?"

"Oh, bother." Lilly pulled the cap off and pressed the lipstick to my lower lip. "Hold still, would you?"

"What are you doing?"

"Oh, come on. Don't tell me you didn't notice Mr. Hottie over by the punch bowl. He totally just winked at you."

"He did?" My gaze flew to the punch bowl. A cute guy with long blond hair was staring back at me. When he realized he'd drawn my attention, he smiled.

"That's Samuel Forster," I whispered to Lilly. "I saw him at Tracy's party last weekend."

"The guy who played Romeo in the TV mini series?" Lilly asked with a dreamy sigh.

"Yeah." I stole another glance at him. "Mmm, isn't he fine! Quick, Lola! Hand over the lipstick!"

Lilly obeyed. "Oh look, now he's coming over here!"

Quickly I applied the lipstick, then dropped it back into my purse. Tonight was my night! Who would've thought I'd meet my future husband at a Save-The-Whales charity event? What a story we'd tell our children about how we met under the blue mood lights at an aquarium and spent the night dancing around fish tanks to tunes from the Aqua Zone band. It was everything I had dreamed and more.

Samuel stepped up to me and smiled a gorgeous smile. "O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright." He boldly took my hand and kissed it, then looked up at me with a pair of startlingly blue eyes.

That puddle on the floor…yup, that was me.

"Oooh, you even talk like that in real life!" Lilly exclaimed. She held out her hand for him to kiss, but he took no notice of her.

"'Beauty's ensign yet is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,'" he quoted. "You, my dear, are exquisite."

Exquisite? Would he mind if I proposed right now?

Lilly huffed and tossed her chin length blue hair. "Whatever. I'm getting some punch."

Sammy stepped closer to me. "'How fares my Hannah? That I ask again; for nothing can be ill, if she be well.'"

Okay, maybe he was a little strange, but give me a break – he was _way_ cute! "So Romeo, do you speak twenty-first century American, too?"

He stared at me, confused.

"Never mind. You must be the infamous Samuel Forster, right?"

"Oh!" He bowed slightly. "Forgive me, how rude I have been not to introduce myself properly. My name is Samuel Jonathan Wright Forster. But you can call me Sammy."

I raised an eyebrow. "Sammy?"

"Despite all appearances," he leaned toward me, as if to tell me a huge secret, "I was born in Texas, and everyone I know calls me Sammy. My mom actually named me after her favorite cow who won first prize at the state fair in '88."

My eyes grew very wide. "The cow's name was Sammy?"

"Well, her name was Samantha, but Mom couldn't name me _that_."

I didn't know what to say, so I stared at his pretty blue eyes and pretended he had never mentioned a cow.

Sammy cleared his throat. "Would you care to dance, my lady?"

"I'd love to!"

What? Don't look at me like that. He was _really _cute.

Sammy swept me onto the dance floor. It was just like I'd always dreamed…except in my dreams I'd been wearing a pair of silver Jimmy Choo heels instead of these black clunkers.

"After tonight I'm gonna have to find a new recurring dream." I sighed.

"Why?"

"Because you just made mine come true."

"Ah, you 'talk of dreams, which are the children of an idle brain, begot of nothing but vain fantasy.'"

Woah, where had _that_ come from? "You must've memorized those lines pretty well, Sammy. I mean, you shot the mini series what? A year ago? I can't remember the lyrics to my songs for even half that long, and they actually make sense."

"That's okay, Hannah. Intelligence doesn't matter to me." He drew me closer. "Your 'beauty makes this vault a feasting presence full of light.'"

_What_ did he just say? "Excuse me?"

"Do not get too excited, my dear. 'These violent delights have violent ends.'"

I stared at him in disbelief. Was he for real? Maybe I'd chosen my future husband a little too hastily.

"Lola?" I whimpered. I looked around desperately for a way out. Where was Lilly when I needed her? And why hadn't Oliver showed up yet? He was an hour late!

"Oh!" Sammy exclaimed. "Your 'eyes in heaven would through the airy region stream so bright that birds would sing and think it were not night!'"

I sighed. This was starting to get a little old.

The Aqua Zone band started up a new languid tune, this one featuring a harp, an accordion, and – was that a goldfish tank they were blowing bubbles into?

"'See how she leans her cheek upon her hand!'" Sammy said with feeling. "'O that I were a glove upon that hand, that I might touch that cheek!'"

"Do you get a lot of girls that way?" I asked bluntly. "Speaking almost entirely in Shakespeare quotes?"

"Yeah." Was he really blushing? How did he turn that into a compliment?

I sighed helplessly. This was just my luck. There was always something wrong with the cute guys, especially the ones that were tall and blond.

"Hannah, I must confess something to you," Sammy said very seriously.

I rolled my eyes. "What?"

"'Did my heart love till now? Foreswear it, sight! For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.'"

"Sammy, listen," I interrupted, pushing him away from me. "I didn't like Shakespeare in eighth grade, and I like him even less now."

"Please, Hannah! Don't go!" he cried, his charade falling away. "My real confession is that I have been your secret number one fan since the first time I saw you perform in Dallas. You sang 'This is the Life" and it was the most beautiful song I've ever heard. I have always wanted to meet you. That was my primary goal in coming to Malibu. Well, that and I'm going to be staring in another mini series called 'Romeo: The Later Years.'"

"The later _what_?" I squeaked.

"It's about Romeo's attempts to find happiness in the wild savannahs of North Africa after losing his beloved Juliet. Yesterday we had an elephant on set. The monkeys are coming tomorrow. I don't know how I feel about the monkeys, though. The last time I worked with a monkey he snuck into my dressing room and stole my underwear. I thought it was very unprofessional."

I bit my lip – hard – to keep from bursting out laughing. "Sammy…didn't Romeo die in the first play?"

Sammy's blue eyes got very round. "He did?"

Oh brother, this was going to be a long night.

"My dearest Hannah!" He grabbed my hand. "There are so many things I had planned to say. 'It seems she hangs a rich jewel upon the cheek of the Ethiope's ear'…no wait, 'a rich jewel in an Ethiope's cheek'…no, that wasn't it. Hold on."

He closed his eyes and started whispering phrases that made no sense. With each second that passed he grew more frantic. "I had it all planned out. I memorized everything. This was supposed to be perfect. Oh, fiddlesticks!"

I couldn't help myself. A tiny little gasping laugh burst out. But Sammy was too distraught to notice.

"My lady, I am most sincerely sorry. You deserve the most eloquent, most elaborate, most perfect, most –"

"Just make your point, Sammy."

"Yes, yes of course." He drew in a long, shaky breath. He took my hands and squeezed them. I pretended not to notice that they were rather sweaty.

"I cannot be silent. I must declare my deep, undying, soul-wrenching love for you."

I took a _big_ step back. "Romeo say _what_?"

"I love you, Hannah. I always have and I always will. 'Tempt not a desperate man.' Tell me you love me and we never have to be apart again!"

Sweet niblets! The boy was crazy!

"Uh, Sammy," I said, pulling him gently off to the side of the dance floor. "I'm flattered by your affection, but –"

"Affection!" He gaped at me. "But I _love_ you. We were meant to be together. Forever!"

"Yes, yes, I know. But that just can't happen, Sammy. I'm very sorry."

He looked up at me pathetically. Yeah, he definitely wasn't cute anymore. Unless 5-year-old cute counts, which it doesn't.

"Why not? I love you."

"Yes, but love has to go both ways for a relationship to work, Sammy."

"You could learn to love me," he whimpered.

"No, I don't think I could."

"Why not? Please Hannah, give me one good reason why you can't at least try."

"Well, because…" I glanced around, trying to think of something. Where the heck was Lilly? I couldn't see her blue head anywhere. She _better_ not have ditched me and found herself another Mr. Hottie! "Well, Sammy…because…" I was grasping at straws. "Because I have a body odor problem!"

"A what?"

"Yeah, something about my pores, they don't regulate properly. Guys hate to be around me, I smell awful."

"No, not at all!" he declared. "'One fairer than my love? The all-seeing sun ne'er saw her match since the world first begun!' You smell like a field of lavender right now."

"That's because I just got a lavender pore treatment this morning. But you won't want to smell me tomorrow. It's nas-tay."

"You could never smell bad to me, Hannah. You're perfect."

Dear God, this was like Oliver all over again. Only worse. A hundred times worse. "It's not just the pore thing, Sammy. I uh…I already have a boyfriend."

"You have a _boyfriend_!?" A look of horror came over his face. "'No words can that woe sound!'"

"Woah, not so loud, pal." I looked around, just to make sure none of the reporters had heard that. One of them was filming the Aqua Zone band, and the other had its camera pointed at a very fat goldfish. So far so good.

"I can't believe you have a boyfriend!" Sammy wailed. "I haven't heard about this anywhere. It can't be true!"

"It's a recent development," I explained. "We're keeping it kinda hush-hush."

"But…but you said you had a pore problem, that guys don't want to be around you."

"Oh, my boyfriend smells bad, too. We're perfect for each other."

Sammy moaned. "How can this be? You have crushed the innermost parts of my soul."

I sighed. "Sorry pal, but sometimes love hurts. Romeo ought to know that better than anyone else."

"But even _Romeo_ finds love in the wild savannahs of Africa!" he cried.

This was turning into a nightmare. Lilly was going to be in trouble for abandoning me. Big trouble.

"Hannah, I don't believe you. I love you too much. I think you're afraid of loving me back. You're afraid of what we can have together. I won't leave your side until I can convince you that you belong with me."

"Sammy," I said through clenched teeth. "The only thing I'm afraid of right now is what I'm gonna do if you say you love me one more time. I have a boyfriend. End of story."

It baffled the mind, but yes, Sammy was actually crying. "Who? Who is this man who has stolen your heart? Show him to me and I'll prove myself the better."

"Well…he uh…he was supposed to come tonight, but..." I scanned the room for inspiration. I didn't know a single guy in the entire room. Dang flabbit! This was the last time I'd ever agree to sing for a Save-The-Whales charity ball.

What was I going to do? I couldn't just make someone up; Sammy would never believe me. I had to have proof. Real living proof….

"Sorry I'm late, Hannah." Oliver slipped between me and Sammy, oblivious to anything that had transpired between us. "I didn't get your text message in time. My mom read this article in the newspaper about how cell phones are killing all the honey bees, and she made me turn mine off. Man, I hate arriving after all the good food is gone. Lola said there were salmon rolls on table two, but I went over there and all I could find was this egg roll thing." He bit into it.

I grinned at him mischievously. Oh yes, help had finally arrived. Impulsively I grabbed Oliver by the shoulders and pointed him toward Sammy. "Mike, I'm so glad you could make it tonight. I want you to meet my new pal Sammy. Sammy, this is Mike Standley…my boyfriend."


	2. Chapter 2

Part Two 

Oliver choked on his egg roll. "_What_?"

I smiled sweetly as I held onto his arm. "Now, Mikey, you know what happens when you eat egg rolls – it makes the smell worse." I took the item in question out of his hand, then sniffed his shoulder. "Oh! You're wearing that new cologne I bought you. Didn't I tell you it would help with the odor problem?"

"Odor problem?" Oliver sniffed his armpit just to make sure I was lying. "Okay…what's going on?"

"I was just telling Sammy here what a great boyfriend you are." My eyes were wide, begging him to play along. "He's a Hannah fan. A really big fan. _Really_ big. And he quotes Shakespeare. A _lot._"

"But I'm not your –"

"Yes, yes, I know I said to keep it a secret from the press, but Sammy's just an innocent fan. Innocent and a little," I leaned toward Oliver, "_obsessive_. So it's okay, you can tell him we're dating. _Please. _Tell him."

Sammy was watching us skeptically, and Oliver looked very confused. I gritted my teeth. "Sammy, would you excuse us for a minute? The egg rolls always do this to him."

I dragged Oliver over to an unoccupied table and pushed him into a seat. "What is wrong with you? I'm trying to get rid of the guy and you're not helping at all!"

"Well, how was I supposed to know that? "

"I gave you hints. Lots of hints. How did you not understand the hints?" Moaning, I plopped down next to him. "You have to pretend to be my boyfriend. Just for tonight, please? Otherwise he'll never leave me alone."

Oliver grunted. "Are you trying to tell me he's not your type? You know, tall, blonde, and famous?" He grabbed the egg roll from my hand and took another bite. "Oh, I see what's going on here. What you're _really _trying to do is make him jealous. Because he already has a girlfriend. Am I right?"

"_No_!" I groaned. "I swear, I don't like him at all. Not any more. I mean, one minute he was the man of my dreams, then the next he was Sammy, namesake of a prize-winning cow, star of a play called 'Romeo: The Later Years.' Then he went and professed his undying love for me! In tears! He's incapable of speaking anything unrelated to Shakespeare, and you know how much I hate Shakespeare! Really, Oliver, I need your help!"

Okay – either Oliver was laughing at me, or he had just noticed that the Aqua Zone band was blowing bubbles into a fish tank.

"Oliver, please, it isn't funny!"

"It is a little," he chuckled.

"Oliver!" I banged my head against the table in frustration.

"Okay, okay." He brushed my hair out of the way. "But first, if you call me Oliver out in public like this one more time, you're gonna have worse problems than Sammy. And second, I do _not_ have a body odor problem." He looked down sheepishly. "That was taken care of in the third grade."

I sat up happily. "Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you." I threw my arms around his neck.

"Yeah, well, just for tonight. I've got a reputation to keep."

"A reputation?"

"Everyone knows Mike Standley the Third is popular with the ladies. He doesn't have girlfriends."

I rolled my eyes. "The only reputation you have around here is for stuffing your face with food. Now come on, let's go convince Sammy we're a couple."

Sammy was wringing his hands anxiously when we returned. He gave Oliver a once over, then squared his shoulders as if to prove he was taller. "I can see that you're having problems already." He turned to me and put a hand on my arm. "That doesn't bode well for a long-term relationship. You should reconsider. I have a much more agreeable disposition. And I get free tickets to glow-in-the-dark putt putt."

"Watch your hand there, Sammy." Oliver disentangled him from my arm. "This isn't a petting zoo."

"See, that's exactly what I'm talking about," Sammy said. "He's jealous and overbearing. _I_ would never presume to speak for you without your direct permission."

"Actually, I think it's sweet." I snuggled against Oliver. "He takes such good care of me."

Sammy frowned.

"And he gets free tickets to all the hottest concerts in Malibu."

Sammy's frown deepened.

Oliver shrugged and played with my hair.

"I bet he can't quote Shakespeare, though," Sammy said triumphantly.

"So what?" I tossed back. "He can do one heck of a fruit fly impression."

Oliver nodded. "It's true. It takes a lot of skill to get the fruit at just the right angle. Otherwise the fruit fly will look a little bug-eyed and –"

I clamped my hand over Oliver's mouth. "Not now, _honey._"

Sammy couldn't figure us out, and it was driving him crazy. I noticed that his foot was tapping impatiently. "You seemed impressed with my flowery words earlier, Hannah. I wonder what Mike would say if I told him you were making eyes at me while we were dancing."

Dang, the boy was smarter than I'd thought. "You must've misunderstood me. I have naturally long lashes and I blink a lot. It's genetic."

"You mean like your pore problem?"

"Pore problem?" Oliver raised an eyebrow. "She doesn't have –" I pinched his arm, and he yelped. "Oh! _That_ problem. Right. It's terrible. She smells awful."

Sammy's brow wrinkled as he looked back and forth between us.

"Well, the chit-chat's been nice," I said quickly, "but Mike's here now and I've been dying to dance with him all night. So if you'll excuse us." I took Oliver's hand and dragged him toward the dance floor.

"'I defy you, stars!'" Sammy called after us. "I'm gonna prove to you that you belong with me, Hannah. No matter what it takes!"

"Try some of the banana pudding over on table four," Oliver answered back. "It'll help with the indigestion."

Sammy stomped his foot in frustration.

I laughed. "Mike, that was so mean…I love it!"

We weaved between two couples, looking for an open spot on the floor.

"Do we really have to dance?" Oliver asked, looking longingly back at his egg roll.

"Of course. Sammy's watching us."

"I know, but I'm starving. My mom made stuffed peppers for dinner and I fed mine to Bruno."

"Stop complaining. This is more important."

"Than my growling stomach?"

"Geez, is it really that bad to have to dance with me?"

He stopped and looked down at me. It was an odd look, one I didn't think I'd seen before. He spoke softly: "I guess not."

"Good." I put his hands on my waist, then rested mine on his shoulders.

We danced silently. I wasn't sure if we were tired, or if the music was lame, or if we'd just never danced before, but whatever it was, it was awkward.

"Why are we in an aquarium?" Oliver blurted out.

It took me a moment to find my tongue. "I don't know. Maybe 'cause it's a Save-The-Whales charity event?"

"But whales technically aren't fish. And if you look around, there's not a whale in sight."

"Since when are you smart _and _observant?"

Oliver shrugged. "Maybe I think clearer on an _empty stomach_." He emphasized the last part, as if to remind me that he was hungry.

I ignored the vibe. "Are you suggesting the charity isn't legit?"

"No. I'm just saying the goldfish aren't working for me. And –" his eyes widened, "are they blowing bubbles into a fish tank?"

I laughed.

"Hey, Hannah!" Lilly came twirling up beside us with a dishy Spanish dude on her arm. "Look who I bumped into."

Okay, so she _had _run off with another Mr. Hottie. But strangely enough, I wasn't jealous anymore.

"What happened to punch-bowl guy?" Lilly asked. I thought it odd that she barely blinked twice at the sight of me and Oliver dancing together. Shouldn't she have at least noticed?

"He turned out to be an obsessed fan," I explained. "But Mike here is helping me diffuse the problem."

"Ooooh," Lilly said knowingly. "You told him Mike was your boyfriend, right? Good plan. I hope it works. Gotta go! Lupe is giving me a tour of the aquarium."

Like a whirlwind, she and Lupe were gone.

"That was odd," I murmured under my breath.

"I'm thinking if they at least had a _picture _of a whale," Oliver said, "I could handle the goldfish."

"Oh, get over it. You're doing a lousy job of being my boyfriend. You're supposed to smile at me and say nice things."

He looked down at me with a half-hearted scowl. "You're asking a lot. What am I getting out of this?"

"The satisfaction of helping a friend?"

He pondered my suggestion. "Well…"

"If you do this for me, I'll buy you a whole platter of salmon rolls. And spread rumors about what a great kisser you are."

His eyes lit up. "Done."

We were in the middle of our third song, and making respectable progress in our 'relationship,' when suddenly Sammy interrupted and threw himself at my feet.

"I remembered!" he cried, grabbing onto my shoes. "'It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear.'"

"Dude, get off my girlfriend." Oliver picked him up. He set him down a couple feet away and got a whiff of his breath. "Did you eat my egg roll?"

"Um…was that yours?" Sammy asked nervously.

Oliver glanced back at the table. Sure enough, his egg roll was missing. He grabbed Sammy by the shoulders and shook him. "No one messes with my egg rolls. You hear that? No one!"

I cleared my throat.

"And no one messes with my girl, either. So back off, Romeo!"

I smiled proudly. Yup, that was my Oliver. Wait, _my_ Oliver?

Sammy was trembling, but he didn't back down. "'Is there no pity sitting in the clouds, that sees into the bottom of my grief?' Oh Hannah, why can't you give me a chance? This guy here is all wrong for you. He looks at his egg roll with more longing. I can tell you don't even love each other. You deserve to be with one who will adore you. Just tonight, Hannah. Give me one night, and –"

Oliver pushed Sammy aside, took me into his arms, and kissed me.

And that was when it happened.


	3. Chapter 3

Part Three

At first I thought it was a spark. You know, the kind you feel when you meet someone for the first time and your hand brushes against theirs. But this wasn't like any spark I'd ever felt before. No, it was more like something waking up inside of me. Something exhilarating and terrifying and completely unexpected. It didn't even register in my mind that it was Oliver, not at first. It was like a kiss from my dreams, and some mysterious, handsome stranger had just claimed me as his own. But then at last reality kicked in, and…

Oh my gosh I was kissing _Oliver_!

He broke away before I had time to panic, looking pretty pleased with himself. "Booyah! Top that, Sammy," he challenged.

Sammy looked devastated. He had no words. I saw the tears welling up in his eyes, saw his lips quiver. He hung his head, turned around, and left.

I watched him go, feeling strangely guilty. I hadn't meant to hurt him, not like that. But honestly, how else was I going to get rid of him?

"I guess we took care of that problem, eh?" Oliver said. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go get another egg roll."

I stood there on the dance floor feeling weak and disoriented. What had just happened? Why was my heart still racing? Why did I suddenly feel this strange disappointment now that Oliver had walked off? And why wasn't Oliver the least bit affected by that kiss?

I collapsed onto the nearest chair. Whatever had happened, it was definitely worse than listening to Sammy quote Shakespeare.

"We saw a shark!" Lilly slid into the seat across from me. Lupe sat next to her, grinning. "And some clown fish. The clown fish were cool."

"Sí, cool," Lupe echoed.

"Cool, but not very clowny. I guess you chased off punch bowl guy?" Lilly looked around for him.

"Yeah, he's gone."

"You okay?" She touched my arm. "You don't look so good."

Lilly was so bright and happy, I knew I couldn't ruin the night for her with my problems. She deserved to have fun with Lupe. We could always talk tomorrow. If I died of anguish before then, so be it.

"I'm fine." I smiled weakly. "We put on quite a show for Sammy and he left. Now everything's back to normal."

"Great!" Lilly leaned over to Lupe and whispered something in his ear, then turned back to me. "I just talked to my mom. She said we could walk down to the ice cream shop and she'll pick us up in a bit. Are you good here?"

What else could I say? Don't leave me, I'm in the middle of a crisis? "Yeah, I'm good," I lied. "Go have fun."

Lilly thanked me and traipsed off with Lupe.

Now I really did feel sick. Not only could I not pour my heart out to my best friend for the rest of the night, but I had to go home with Oliver. In the limo. Alone. And Roxie wouldn't even sit between us the whole way because…well, let's face it, he's Oliver. He'd been Roxie-proofed years ago.

The Aqua Zone band blared out a hideous song with a whistle, an out-of-tune banjo, and dolphin calls. I wasn't sure which sound grated on my nerves the most, but one thing I _did_ know: Save-The-Whales was getting scratched off my charity list the moment I got home.

I sat in my chair and watched Oliver move around the room. He ate some food, scared a girl off with a really lame joke, and ate some more. Then finally he came back to me with an ice cream Sundae and two spoons. He handed one to me.

"Want some?"

Suddenly I was on guard. "I can get my own, you know."

He shrugged. "This is the last one. I thought you might like some."

I stared indecisively at the spoon he'd dropped in front of me. If I shared the Sundae with him, did that mean I liked him? Or did it just mean I had a bad sweet tooth?

Oliver seemed oblivious to my dilemma. He started eating the ice cream. "So Sammy hasn't come back?"

"No sign of him."

"We got him good, didn't we?" He licked his spoon.

See, normally I'd be grossed out watching him eat, but now he was actually kind of…no, what was I thinking? Oliver wasn't _cute_...was he?

Well, he sure was a good kisser.

Stop thinking about it!

"Is that all this was to you?" I said a little sharper than I'd intended. "You were just having a little fun, ganging up on an innocent boy, making him cry!"

Oliver paused mid-bite and looked at me quizzically. "It was _your_ idea."

"And you're the one who tore out his poor little heart with that…spectacle! He'll never set foot in Malibu again."

"Isn't that what you wanted?"

"No! Yes! I don't know. Oh, just go eat another egg roll." I slung my purse over my shoulder, stood up, turned to leave – and tripped over Oliver's foot. I landed flat on my face.

"Miles, are you okay?" Oliver crouched down beside me. "I'm sorry."

I wanted to cry. Everything was so messed up, and now I probably had dirt, dust bunnies, and food stains all over my new dress. I wished I hadn't let Lilly leave. I needed her. I needed a hug.

Oliver helped me to my feet. "Maybe we should go home," he suggested.

I nodded and held onto him. He had a strong back, and I found myself relaxing against him. "I didn't mean to yell at you."

"It's okay."

We called for the limo and said nothing as we stood waiting for it to drive around front. It wasn't until we were halfway home that I found the courage to speak.

"You didn't have to kiss me."

He looked at me for the first time since we'd gotten in the limo. Then he shrugged apologetically and looked away. "Listen, Miles, I know how much you didn't like it when _I_ had a crush on Hannah, so I was just trying to help. Don't freak out and think it means anything, okay?" He played with the window button, rolling it up and down.

"It's not that I _didn't_ like it when you followed Hannah everywhere," I said. "It was just weird to have my best friend thinking I was someone else."

"Hey, we're past that. It's all good. Do you think Roxie hid any of those candy bars in here?" He searched between the cushions and under the seat.

"Are you seriously still hungry?"

"No, but the last time I was in here I stepped on one and tracked it all over my mom's carpet. I don't feel up for a repeat tonight."

He kept looking, and I sighed. "I just don't want you to think I _wanted_ you to kiss me."

"Believe me, I don't." He sat back with a grunt, waving a half eaten candy bar in the air. "And Smoken Oken saves the night once again with his quick thinking and irresistible charm."

"Yeah, you charmed that candy bar right into your hands." I crossed my arms over my chest and refused to let his careless words hurt. So it didn't mean anything to him, so what? It's not like it meant anything to me. In fact, this was good. Tomorrow everything would be normal again. Oliver would joke around about everything, and I would make fun of him. That was what I wanted, anyway, so why was I letting it bother me so much?

I didn't sleep all that night. The kiss plagued me every time I thought about it, which was constantly. I couldn't remember the last time I'd thought so much about a kiss. It drove me crazy that I couldn't get my mind off of it. I knew something was terribly different from all the other times I'd kissed a guy, but I couldn't figure out what it was.

Maybe this all-consuming paranoia was just an odd expression of my disgust.

Because I sure didn't _like_ him. Not like that.

I called Lilly at 7:00 in the morning and begged her to come over. It was Saturday, so she was understandably mad at me. But I bribed her over with a promise that my dad would have pancakes ready when she got there.

"Daaad!" I pulled his covers back. "You have to come make me and Lilly pancakes!"

"What's that I hear?" He rubbed his ears and yawned. "Oh, that's right. It's the voice of a girl whose daddy's about to lock her out of the house."

"Pretty please? It's important. Lilly and I have serious business to discuss."

"Now I do recall that at one time I showed you how to make pancakes yourself."

"Yes, but you make them the best. And I promised Lilly! Pretty pretty please?" I jumped up and down on his bed.

"You know the double pretty please doesn't work before ten in the morning, Bud. I'm sorry but you're gonna have to fix those 'cakes yourself." He covered his head with a pillow and refused to be disturbed any further.

I made the pancakes myself, and when Lilly came over she complained. "They taste like dried up pita bread with chunks of burnt peanut butter inside."

"How creative of you." I frowned from across the table.

Lilly shrugged and ate another bite. "It's okay, the burnt peanut butter is growing on me. So what's this big thing you wanted to talk about?"

"It's Oliver."

"Did he embarrass you again? I told you from the start not to let him come to Hannah stuff."

"No, he didn't embarrass me. He…kissed me."

Lilly laughed. "Sure."

"He did."

She sawed through her pancake with a knife. "Seriously, come on."

"I _am_ being serious!"

That got her attention. She dropped her knife and stared up at me with wide eyes. "Eww, gross! No wonder you were having nightmares!"

"Lilly, do I look like I'm grossed out about it?"

She tilted her head. "Hmm. Wait." She took my chin in her hands and moved my head around so she could see my eyes at every angle. Satisfied, she sat back. "Nope." It took her a moment to realize what she'd said, and then she jumped up. "Oh my gosh! You're not grossed out. Why are you not grossed out?"

"I don't know. You tell me. I've been trying to figure it out all night."

Lilly began pacing the room. "I wonder what Oliver thinks about this."

I grunted. "Not much, apparently. He acted like it never happened."

"Why did he do it, then?"

"To make Sammy think we were in love so he would go away."

"Well, it worked, right? He helped you out, you got rid of punch bowl guy. It didn't mean anything. What's the problem?"

"The problem is that I don't _want_ it to mean anything, but I keep thinking about it! Lilly, after he kissed me I couldn't make myself admire any of the other guys in the room. I kept watching Oliver, which was crazy because all he was doing was eating and making a fool of himself. Tell me there's a logical explanation for all this."

Lilly made me lie down on the sofa and propped my head up with a pillow. "Calm down, okay? We'll figure this out. First thing's first." She grabbed a pad of paper and a pen off the coffee table and poised herself to take notes. "Okay, on a scale of one to ten, how good was the kiss?"

"I don't know. This is silly."

"You're blushing!"

"I am not. Fine. It was like, an eight. And that's being generous."

Lilly's eyes got very round. "The highest score you've ever given anyone was a seven."

"That's not true. Jake was definitely a nine."

"I'm your best friend, Miley. I think I know how you rated Jake's kisses. You said at first it felt like a ten, but then when you thought about it later it wasn't even a five."

I groaned. "Whatever. We're fifteen. We have to stop rating kisses. It's so junior high."

Lilly jotted something down on the pad of paper.

"What are you doing?"

"Taking notes?" She blinked innocently.

"You're not helping! I'm having a crisis, Lilly! What am I going to do?"

"Okay, okay." She threw the pad over her shoulder and dropped down in front of me. "I think we can solve this pretty quickly. Here's the big question. Do you want him to kiss you again?"

Suddenly, in the silence that followed, it all came together. The thing that bothered me more than anything else about last night was that I knew he would never kiss me again. And I _wanted_ him to, but he had made it clear that he _didn't_. That's what made the whole situation so unbearable.

"Oh my gosh, Lilly. I _like_ him. I _like_ Oliver. How did this happen?" I buried my face into the couch pillow. "I can't ever see him ever again. You'll have to act as a buffer. Keep him away from me. Tell him I have a contagious disease. No, that'll never work. I have to move. I have to change my cell number and my screen name and…oh, I have to change my real name, too!"

"Miley, please, calm down." Lilly patted my shoulder. "This isn't the end of the world. So you like your best friend. So what? It happens all the time."

"No it doesn't!"

"Well, maybe it won't be as bad as you think. Maybe when you see him today you won't feel anything at all. Then you can go back to normal."

I peered hopefully from behind the pillow. "Do you think so?"

"Probably not, but –"

"Lilly!"

"Why don't you just tell him, then? Maybe he feels the same way."

"If 'booyah' is an expression of affection, then yeah, I'm sure he feels the same way."

"Don't be cynical. He's Oliver. He reacts differently to stuff."

"I know, but this is big. What if I tell him and he doesn't like me back?"

"Then I'll comfort you while you cry," she said sweetly. I frowned at her, and she lowered her head. "Sorry."

"Come on, Lilly, I need a plan. Help me think of a plan." I sat up and brushed hair out of my face.

"A plan to do what?"

"To keep Mike and Hannah together, duh! What else?"

Lilly scratched her head. "I'm not sure how this is going to help."

"Maybe _Miley_ can't date him," I explained, already devising schemes in my head, "but _Hannah_ can. And if he pretends to date me a little longer, eventually he'll _want_ to date me. It's a foolproof plan, Lilly! Quick, get a pen! Write this down!"

Lilly sighed, pulled a pillow off the sofa, and buried her face in it. "Oh, brother. Here we go."


	4. Chapter 4

Hey everyone, thanks for the reviews. Ya'll rock! I plan to keep updating regularly, so stay tuned.

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Part Four 

Lilly rolled through my living room on her skate board. "No luck, Miley. I called Sammy's agent and he refused to give me Sammy's number. He said I sounded underage and up to no good." She huffed. "Imagine that!"

I groaned. "I couldn't find him on set, either. Turns out there really _is_ a mini series called 'Romeo: The Later Years.'" I dropped onto the sofa. "I tried to sneak in disguised as a monkey trainer but they threw me out. Sammy was right about those monkeys. I think one of them stole my bracelet."

Lilly picked something up off the floor. "You mean this bracelet?"

"Oh." I took it from her with a dejected sigh.

"Don't worry, Miley. We'll just move on to plan B."

"Without Sammy there _is_ no plan B. There's not even a plan C."

"Yes there is." She grinned proudly. "Lupe."

"Lupe is plan B?"

"It's simple," Lilly explained. "He's going to be your new number one fan tonight at Tracy's beach party."

"Oooh! You're brilliant!" I jumped up, considering the possibilities. "Wait – are you sure this will work? Can Lupe act?"

"Pul-leeze. He used to star on a Spanish soap opera. Drama is his middle name."

"Yeah, but can he speak English?"

Lilly laughed nervously. "Of course…he just…he might need a little help."

I put my hands on my hips. "Lilly…"

"No, it's okay! I made him note cards. See?" She held up an orange index card. "'Oh Hannah, I love you!' How's that?" She flipped to the next one. "'You are my favorite singer ever! Please be my girlfriend!'"

I fell back onto the sofa. "This is never going to work!"

"Stop being so pessimistic," Lilly scolded. "I've got it all worked out. You just have to trust me."

"The last time I trusted you I ended up with chocolate pudding all over my face."

Lilly looked down apologetically. "You didn't duck fast enough."

"Whatever. Are you sure Lupe can pull this off?"

"I promise. I'll take care of Lupe. All you have to do is convince Oliver to help you again."

"I can do that." At least, I hoped I could.

Someone was rapping frantically on the back door. "Let me in, let me in!" It was Jackson.

Lilly opened the door for him. He was out of breath and clearly spooked. "You'll never believe this! I just got chased all the way down the street by a ninja squirrel!"

Lilly and I stared at him, disbelieving.

"Did the ninja squirrel kick you?" Lilly teased. "Or did it just threaten you with its noisy chatter?"

"It bit me! On the foot!"

Lilly laughed. I yawned.

"I'm not kidding." Jackson held up his foot. "He followed me all the way to Rico's, hid in the bushes, and when I got up to come home, he attacked!"

"Maybe you got his order wrong," I suggested with a roll of my eyes.

Lilly peered at his toe. "I don't see anything."

"Why would I make this up? Go look. I bet he's waiting on the back porch for me to come out again, snarly little varmint that he is."

The three of us gathered around the glass door. Sure enough a cute, innocent looking squirrel with a crippled paw sat patiently on the porch.

Jackson made a face at the squirrel. "Next time I come out, I'm coming out for battle!" He turned around with a determined look in his eye. "Okay, I'm gonna need boots, elbow pads, night goggles, an acorn, and something really sharp."

"You can borrow my skateboard gear," Lilly offered.

I gasped. "Don't encourage him!"

Oliver walked through the front door just then, dressed for Tracy's beach party. "Whatup guys? Ready to go? Mike is in the house, so let's get this par-tay started!"

I gave him a long look, admiring the way his hair was kind of messy tonight.

Jackson clapped him on the back. "Oliver, go get your camera. A ninja squirrel just attacked me and I'm about to give him a little somethin' somethin' in return."

"Dude, I've got my own problems. A crab bit me this morning when I was down at the beach. It _still_ hurts."

I threw my hands up. "You two are the biggest babies in the world. Get over it!"

"Yeah," Lilly agreed. "I mean, maybe if you were nicer to the animals, they'd be nicer to you, too."

"Hey, _he_ started it!" Jackson retorted, pointing to the squirrel.

Oliver crouched down in front of the door to check him out. "Oh, that little guy? That's Gimpy. My brother adopted him this morning from the wildlife rescue center. He must've escaped."

Jackson was peeved. "Pet or no pet, he attacked me, and he's going down. Now where did I put my night goggles?" He disappeared upstairs.

"I think Gimpy is cute," Lilly said.

"Yeah, I better call my brother before Jackson annihilates him." Oliver started toward the phone.

"I'll get it for you," I offered, reaching across the back of the sofa toward the coffee table.

My arm wasn't long enough, so I stretched on my tip toes. Then suddenly my balance gave way and I flipped over the sofa, crashing into the coffee table. With a groan I stuck my hand out toward the phone, but only succeeded in pushing it against an opened coke bottle, which tipped over and spilled onto a stack of sheet music.

Lilly burst out laughing, and Oliver came around to make sure I was okay.

"I wasn't in _that_ much of a hurry, you know," he said, helping me up. "I was actually debating whether or not watching Jackson battle a ninja squirrel was worth the pain of listening to my brother scream all night when he finds out his pet isn't coming home."

"Who says Jackson's going to win?" Lilly reminded him.

"Good point. I'll call my brother." He picked the phone and dialed.

So once again, Oliver was being completely normal, and I was a freaking mess. At least he hadn't figured out _why_ I'd jumped to get the phone for him. It was embarrassing enough as it was.

Oliver's brother picked up Gimpy five minutes before Jackson found his night goggles. We didn't tell Jackson where the squirrel had gone, so he camped out on the porch with a firewood prodder and a bowl of acorns, waiting for his return.

That disaster averted, Lilly, Oliver, and I headed off to Tracy's party. The big event was at her grandfather's beach house down the coast, so we decided to walk. We heard the noisy guests, smelled the hot dogs, and saw the glow of a small bonfire long before we arrived.

Oliver walked beside me complaining about the crab bite on his foot. I could barely look at him without getting butterflies in my stomach, and putting together a coherent sentence was impossible. Yet he rambled on and on about how we should have taken the limo to spare his poor bruised foot.

"Hannaaah…how good of you to cooome!" Tracy greeted in her nasally voice. "Oooh, and you brought Mike with you. How wonderfuuul." She traced a finger along the collar of his shirt. "Make suuure you come say hi later…I'll be sitting over there under the pink umbrellaaa." She smiled suggestively.

I didn't like the way she was looking at him. At all.

"Toodles!" She winked at Oliver and walked off.

"Stay away from her," I said, pushing Oliver toward the hot dog stand.

"Don't worry, ever since that concert last week when she tied me to a chair and fed me chocolate-covered strawberries, I get queasy when I'm within fifty feet of her."

"She did _what_?" I echoed.

"Yeah, I had to rescue him," Lilly piped in. "The chocolate was everywhere. In his hair, down his shirt –"

Oliver glared at her. "I thought we agreed never to speak of that again."

"Sorry." Lilly looked down at her hands. "But if it makes you feel any better, the chocolate wasn't _every_where. There was one little spot on your elbow that she missed."

See, yesterday before the Save-The-Whales charity event, I would have laughed at him for falling prey to Tracy's schemes. But now I just wanted to tie _her _up. And it wouldn't be chocolate I'd smear all over her, either.

I spotted Lupe walking towards us. He was dressed in beach clothes and had a stack of orange index cards in his hand.

This was going to be a disaster.

"Oh my gosh! It's Hannah!" he read from the card. He looked up at me, then glanced over at Lilly, who urged him on with a nod. He flipped to the next card. "I've always wanted to meet you!"

Was he batting his eyes at me?

"Hannah," Lilly pointed out the obvious, "it looks like you have a new fan."

"Si, number one fan!" Lupe grinned at me innocently. I wondered if he even knew what he was saying.

"Maybe you should tell her your name," Lilly hinted.

Lupe flipped to the next card. "My name Lupe is." He looked up, still grinning.

We were doomed. Oliver was never going to buy this.

"Lupe," I said, "it's really nice to meet you, but I'm here with my friends now, so maybe we can talk later."

"Okay," he said cheerfully, not the least bit disappointed. He turned to leave, but Lilly stepped in front of him and cleared her throat. He looked at her questioningly, and she made a motion with her hands for him to flip to the next card. He obeyed. "This is best day of life my. So happy to meet you!"

I glanced over at Oliver, afraid to see the look on his face. But he was drawing in the sand with his toe, apparently oblivious to everything that was happening with Lupe. "Hey look," he said, pointing to the sand drawing. "It's a hot dog."

I groaned.

"No, wait." He drew a line over the top. "Now it's a chili hot dog!"

"_Mike_," I said impatiently. "I could use a little help right now."

"Why? What's up?"

"This guy here is totally going crazy for Hannah," Lilly explained. She nudged Lupe with her elbow, and he flipped another card. "Oh, Hannah! I you love! You make my heart faster beat!"

Oliver gave Lupe a once-over. "Dude, why are you reading off a note card?"

"Yeah, why _are_ you?" I echoed, giving Lilly an evil-eye.

"He's just shy, and his English isn't very good," Lilly said. "But that doesn't lessen how he feels, does it, Lupe?"

Lupe half nodded, half shook his head.

"Hey, aren't you the guy Lola was hanging out with last night?" Oliver asked.

Oh God, if Oliver figured out what we were doing, I was going to die of humiliation.

"He was afraid to talk to Hannah," Lilly said, "so he came to me. Of course I told him Hannah already had a boyfriend, but he wouldn't listen to me. He insisted on declaring his love for her." She flipped the next card for Lupe.

"You are my singer favorite," he read. "Please be my girlfriend?"

Oliver looked annoyed. "Where do you people come from? Just leave her alone, okay? I'm getting a hot dog." He walked off.

Lilly and I exchanged looks.

"What happened to 'I'll take care of Lupe. Just trust me'?" I accused.

"Sorry. He was doing so well when we rehearsed it, I thought –"

"No, you didn't think. This was a bad idea. I knew it wouldn't work."

Lilly hung her head. "I was just trying to help."

"Well, stop trying, okay?" I turned away from her. "I'm getting a hot dog, too."

I knew I was being unfair, but I couldn't help myself. Why did things have to be so complicated? Why couldn't Oliver just like me back? Or better yet, why couldn't I just go back to _not_ liking Oliver?

I watched him as he squirted ketchup on his hot dog. He was relaxed, confident in himself, content to be right where he was – hanging out on the beach. I really liked that about him. He took all the worries of life in stride and never let it change who he was. He was constant, and somehow I knew he always would be.

I walked up beside him and grabbed a hot dog and a bun. "Those crazy fans," I laughed. "Gotta love 'em."

Oliver shrugged. "I can understand the crazy fans – I mean, I used to be one, too – but when the film stars all start groveling at your feet, it gets a little weird."

"Well, Lupe's new to America. He probably does that to every blond girl he meets."

"If that's the case," Oliver mused, "he must go through an awful lot of index cards."

We walked over to the bonfire and ate our hot dogs. I wanted to tell him the truth, to just come out and say it, but it was like my tongue was glued to the top of my mouth. The words refused to come out no matter how much I willed them. So I suffered in silence.

"Isn't it illegal to build fires on the beach?" Oliver asked.

"I don't know, but Tracy never does anything that's legal."

"So that little paintball skirmish going on in the water," he pointed toward a group of rowdy teenagers, "is probably illegal, too?"

"Yeah, you want to join them?"

He grinned. "Why not? I didn't promise my mom I wouldn't get in trouble tonight."

We started toward the waves. But there, standing directly in our path, was a tall blond guy with pretty blue eyes…and he looked like he meant business.

"Hannah, I forgive you for last night," he said, holding out a red rose. "'All these woes shall serve for sweet discourses in our time to come.' Will you now receive my love?"

Oliver and I looked at each other, and I knew things were about to get very interesting.


	5. Chapter 5

Thanks everyone for taking the time to review!

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Part Five 

"Sammy? What are you doing here?" Instinctively I reached for Oliver's arm.

"I know you came to the set today." He stepped closer. "I saw you feeding the monkeys donuts from the refreshment table. You shouldn't have given one to Samson. He's on a low-carb diet."

"Ahah! So you _were _there! Why didn't you talk to me?"

"Because I was mad at you for last night. But then I realized you must have feelings for me after all, if you snuck on set just to catch a glimpse of me."

"Wait – _what_?" Oliver interrupted. " You went to _see _him? After you spent all that time trying to get rid of him?"

I opened my mouth to defend myself, but nothing came out.

"'For stony limits cannot hold out love, and what love can do that dares love attempt.'" Sammy quoted. "She could not contain her love for me, and so she sought me out in secret. I feel your loss deeply, Mike. 'One fire burns out another's burning. One pain is lessen'd by another's anguish.'" He took my hand and pressed a thorn-less rose into my palm.

Oliver gave Sammy a dirty look. "Haven't you run out of quotes by now? Geez, how long _is_ the play?"

"There are 25,409 words to be exact, so–"

"Woah, slow down there, pal." Oliver clapped him on the shoulder. "You need to branch out. Try some new authors. Variety is the spice of life. And you –" He turned to me. "Make up your mind, will you? Either you like him or you don't."

"I don't! I swear it! The only reason I went to the set was because –" I bit my lip, trying to think fast. "Because I wanted to write a piece on it for my creative writing class. Think about it. 'Romeo: The Later Years.' They had elephants and monkeys and African huts and people with paint all over their faces. And hey look, I learned a new dance." I waved my arms wildly in the air and jumped around like I'd seen on a TV show once. "It's cool, huh? I even snuck a peak at Samson's script. He's playing the role of the monkey king who lays out a banana trail leading Romeo to his lover. How can that not make for a good story? My A+ is in the bank."

I could tell Oliver was debating whether or not to believe me. Sammy clearly didn't care one way or the other.

"It's okay," he soothed. "I can see that your attraction to me is still on a subconscious level. The very deepest part of your soul sent you to me today. You want me, but you don't want to want me."

"Dude, do you listen to yourself when you talk?" Oliver asked.

"Sometimes, but that can get confusing."

Oliver shook his head in disbelief.

"Mike and I need to have a little pow-wow - _now_." I steered Oliver toward the waves.

Sammy followed on our heels, so I turned around and pushed him onto the sand. "Sit and stay, Romeo. I'll be back to deal with _you_ in a minute."

Mom had told me once that there were two ways to do everything. The honest way, and the dishonest way. Tricking Oliver into being my boyfriend was the dishonest way. Coming straight out and telling him I liked him would be the honest way. I knew what I had to do, what I _should_ do – and yet it was the scariest thing in the world. I would've rather sung at a thousand concerts in front of tens of thousands of people, than admit to my best friend I liked him.

And so the dishonesty had to continue.

"Oliver, please help me."

He rubbed his temples. "Girls are exhausting. I need another hot dog."

"Is that a yes?"

"Um, let me think – _no_."

"Great, thank you!" I squeezed his arm happily, then realized what he'd said. "Wait - _what? _Why not?"

"I told you already, Mike doesn't have girlfriends. Last night was a one-time deal."

"But…but why?" I whimpered.

"Because of my reputation, duh." He fixed the angle of his baseball cap, then started making strange rap noises. "I'm Mike I like to party, chillin' playin' eatin' hearty, and those girls they aren't so smarty, 'cause I'm freaky freaky freaky freaky _cool._"

I stared at him, momentarily speechless and somehow ridiculously amused. "Again I ask, _what_ reputation? Oliver, please, I really need your help. You can break up with me later. It's just for tonight, just to get rid of Sammy."

"That's what you said last night."

"Well, I didn't know he'd come back!"

Oliver thought for a minute. "I still haven't gotten my payment, you know."

"Fine. I'll send you two platters of salmon rolls, and –" I grabbed a girl who was walking by us in shorts and a bikini top. "Hey, sweety, what's your name?"

"Katie." She smiled.

"Katie, nice to meet you. This is Mike. He's a good kisser. Yeah, that's right. Now stop staring and go tell your friends. Go on! Tell everyone!" I shooed her away and turned back to Oliver. "There. Satisfied?"

He looked at me oddly. "You must _really_ want to get rid of Sammy."

Oh, did he still not have a clue? "Are you in or not?"

"Oh, all right. But I want the salmon rolls delivered by mid-week."

Sammy jumped up as we approached. "You two have a very volatile relationship. If I didn't want you to break up I would suggest couple's therapy. I can recommend a great counselor. She helped my parents when they were fighting over where to put my great grandma's urn. Dad wanted it over the fireplace and Mom wanted it in the bedroom."

"They fought over that and they're still together?" I raised an eyebrow.

"No, they got divorced. That's not a good example, is it?" He rubbed his chin. "But she also helped me through my problems. I used to suffer from anxiety, mental instability, and a fear of expressing myself."

"Really…" Oliver muttered. "Who would've guessed?"

"But now I'm a new man, and I won't let fear keep me from pursuing my own happiness."

Oliver folded his arms over his chest. "Have you ever thought about getting a dog? Dogs makes people happy. I had a dog once." He looked down sadly. "He choked on a pretzel and died."

"I thought Bruno was your dog," I said.

"No, Bruno is our cat."

"He's a _cat_!?"

"Hard to believe, hmm? I blame it on Mom's stuffed peppers."

Sammy ignored our little interlude. "Why would I want a dog when I could see Hannah's beautiful face every day? 'He that is strucken blind cannot forget the precious treasure of his eyesight lost.' She is more beautiful every time I see her."

"You just saw her five minutes ago," Oliver protested.

"And now her cheeks are glowing. Ah, 'men's eyes were made to look, and let them gaze.'"

"Sammy, what part of 'I have a boyfriend' do you not understand?" I was really getting frustrated. The guy just wouldn't quit. He was like the energizer bunny, only without the fuzzy ears.

"Boyfriends come and go," he said. "The average high school relationship lasts four weeks. Probably less for you two. But what we have, Hannah, it will last forever."

That was it. Sammy was going down.

"The only thing that's gonna last forever is the _screaming in my head_!" I grabbed his shirt collar and yanked him toward me. "Listen up, Mister. If you don't make like a three-legged possum and skedaddle, I'm gonna duct tape you to a pole and stick you in the middle of the paintball crossfire. They can use you for target practice."

Oliver cleared his throat. "Um, Hannah…they're not playing anymore."

"_Not_ helping."

"Sorry."

"So what's it gonna be, Sammy? A quick getaway, or a mouthful of paint?"

He gazed at me with stars in his eyes. "I would swim across a sea of paint if it meant you were on the other side."

This was one of those times when I _really_ wanted to try out one of Roxie's puma kicks.

"Ugh! I can't take this anymore." I glared at Oliver. "_You_ fix him!"

"All right, all right. I've got this one. You just sit back and watch. Smoken Oken's gonna turn Sammy's hopin' into mopin'." He straightened his clothes and casually approached the little devil. "Whatup, Romeo? I think it's time you and I had a talk, man to man. You're going about this all wrong. Girls these days, they aren't looking for poetry and flowers."

"They aren't?"

"No, 'course not. They're all about having fun. Take my girl here for instance." He sidled up next to me and put his arm around my shoulder. "I didn't do a single romantic thing to win her over. Not _one._ You wanna know how I did it? I reeled her in with a freaky fresh rap, a funny joke, and a fruit fly impression that was so realistic, she came after me with a fly swatter."

"A _fly swatter_!" I growled into his ear.

"Do you want me to help, or not?"

"Fine."

Sammy pondered Oliver's words of wisdom. "So you're saying that if I give up Shakespeare and tell jokes instead, I can win Hannah's heart?"

"No, I'm saying that if you leave now, I won't have to hit you."

"What?"

Oliver rolled his eyes. "Sammy, my point is that girls are different than they were in the sixteenth century. Your best bet is to just sit back and let them come to you. In fact, if you smile a lot, keep your hair brushed, and say absolutely _nothing_ at all, they'll flock to you like a bee to a honeycomb. The less you do, the better. That's my philosophy."

"Great advice, Dr. Phil," I muttered.

Sammy thought a moment longer, then shook his head. "But I don't care about other girls! I only want Hannah!"

"Well you can't have me, so get over it!" I grabbed Oliver's hand. "Come on Mike, let's go."

"Remember, be the honeycomb." Oliver winked at him as we turned away.

"Wait!" Sammy cried desperately. "I haven't told you about all my special talents! I can sing Mozart operas and play the ukulele. I can name all fifty states and their capitals in alphabetical order – forward and backwards." He chased after us. "I was champion at the state putt-putt competition. I even speak Chinese. Hannah, don't go!"

We lost him in the crowd, but I heard his shrilly voice over the chatter around us, and it sent chills down my spine.

"'A plague on both your houses!' You will regret the day you turned your back on Samuel Jonathan Wright Forster!"

Oliver seemed oblivious to Sammy's threat – he went straight for the hot dogs. I tagged along after him, worrying about Sammy but not knowing what else to do. So far all he had done was make himself a complete nuisance. Maybe that was all he had in him.

Or maybe not.

Tracy's voice came blaring over a speaker system and interrupted my thoughts. "Okaaay everyone, it's tiiime for the annual Marshmallow Warz contessst. Would the first contestants pleeease step up!"

Marshmallow Warz contest? What in Uncle Earl's name was that?

Someone seized my wrist and shoved me none too gently toward the bonfire. It was Lilly.

"You and me," she said, eyes narrowed. "Let's have at it."

"Have at what?" I tried to pry her hand off my wrist.

"Oh, I think you know." She stuck a marshmallow stick in my hand and speared it through a plump marshmallow.

This was turning out to be a very stressful evening.

Lilly gave a thumbs up to Lupe, who was holding a green flag and had a whistle in his mouth.

"Wait, I don't even know how to play!"

"It's easy, Hannaaah," Tracy explained. "The first one to catch their opponent's maaarshmallow on fire wins."

Lupe blew his whistle, waved his flag, and the games began.

Lilly hit my stick with hers, pushing it over the fire. She looked all wild and fierce.

"I don't even remember what we're fighting about!" I snapped my stick out of the fire, then dove back in to attack hers.

"Then you better start remembering! 'Cause you're goin' doooown!" She caught hold of my arm with both hands and held my marshmallow stick firmly over the flames. Instantly it caught fire, and she shrieked in triumph.

"Hey, isn't that against the rules?" I demanded while doing the same exact thing to her. Both of our marshmallows burned up and fell into the fire.

"Stop wasting them!" Oliver cried. He tried to fish them out with his own stick.

Lilly and I ignored him. By now we were attacking other things – our hair, our clothes, our jewelry. We tumbled onto the ground and went rolling.

"Ooooh, watch out for my umbrellaaa!" Tracy called after us.

The crowd cheered. Half were chanting Lola, the other half Hannah. I wondered briefly how Lilly had gotten so many fans.

"Lola, this is crazy," I said, pinning her down. She kneed me in the stomach, and we tumbled again. And again.

Finally Oliver grabbed me by the waist and picked me up off of Lilly. She started to lunge at me, but Lupe caught her. The guys held us as we glared back at each other.

"Say you're sorry," Oliver commanded.

"No!" We shouted in unison.

"Well, you're not going anywhere until you do. I've got all night. You, Lupe?"

"Si."

Lilly and I stared each other down for a long moment, and then at last I caved. "Fine. I'm sorry."

Lilly's nose twitched. "I guess I'm sorry, too."

"Now give each other a hug." Oliver pushed me toward Lilly.

No sooner were my arms around her when she clutched onto me like a little girl, sad and fragile. I heard her whimpering. "I'm sorry," she squeaked.

All the tension left my body, and I held her close. "Sorry for what?"

"I'm sorry for ruining everything. I was just trying to help. I thought the orange index cards were a really good idea. I even made little hearts over the i's, and –"

"Shh, it's okay," I said quickly, not wanting her to say anything else in front of Oliver. I smoothed her hair against her back. "I know you were trying to help. You're the best friend a girl could ever want. I'm sorry, too."

When her tears were dried up, I stood back and released her. I noticed her shirt was torn along the shoulder strap. "Oh, Lola, this was your favorite shirt."

She looked pitiably down at it.

"Why don't you go back to my house and pick something else out from you-know-where." I winked at her.

She brightened instantly. "Ooooh! Lola likey!"

After Lilly trotted off, I turned my attention back to Oliver. He had a marshmallow stick in each back pocket, both filled to the top with roasted marshmallows.

"Mike, what are you –"

"Shh!" He took my hand and started pulling me down the beach. "This party's about to get busted," he explained. "I saw the police car."

"And you stole the marshmallows so we can wave them in surrender when we're caught?"

"No." He picked up a jog. "Gabby and Davie wanted to make a sandcastle out of them, so I had to rescue them."

Why did I even bother to ask sometimes?

We came to a quiet part of the beach and stood where the waves crept up around our toes. Oliver pulled out the marshmallow sticks and handed one to me. The gesture was so simple, so sincere, that it sent goosebumps all over my skin.

We ate the marshmallows in silence, then started laughing when we heard the sirens down the beach. I liked Oliver's laugh. It was the happiest laugh I had ever heard.

"Are you gonna eat the last one?" Oliver looked at the lone marshmallow on my stick. "It's calling my name."

"Not so fast, Mister. It called _my_ name first." I slid the marshmallow off my stick and opened my mouth as if to eat it. At the last second I stopped and shoved it onto Oliver's nose.

"Hey!" He jumped back. "What are you doing?" He scooped the goop off his face and smeared it across my forehead.

"_Now_ who's wasting marshmallows?" I teased. I started toward him again, intending to retaliate –

And tripped over my own two feet. I landed face first in the sand.

Oliver laughed as I sat back on my knees and spit the sand out of my mouth. "If it helps," he said, "you look cute when you're all grainy."

"_Not_ funny. I'm gonna smell like beach sand all week." I brushed it off my face.

"Hey, I know what will get rid of the sand smell." He kneeled in front of me.

"What?"

With a big grin he dropped a piece of seaweed onto my hair.

"Eww! Gross!" I jumped up, swatting at my hair until the seaweed fell off. Then I started swatting at him. "You're gonna pay for this!"

He took both my hands in his to quiet me, and I fell abruptly silent. Oh God, he was like six inches away. I felt the blood rushing in my ears, felt the tingling in my hands. It would've been so easy to just lean forward and –

A burst of light flashed from nowhere, and we both jumped back. Then another flash, and another.

The paparazzi!

I grabbed Oliver's shirt and dragged him along as I ran up the beach. We passed a group of on-lookers, and I saw in their midst a tall blond-haired guy with bright blue eyes.

And his evil grin reached from ear to ear.


	6. Chapter 6

Ya'll rock - I'm glad you like the story.

* * *

Part Six 

"Oliver's gonna freak when he sees this." I held up a tabloid with a picture of us holding hands on the front. The title was even worse. 'New Romance Budding for Pop Star Hannah Montana.'

Lilly inspected the article. "How do they get this stuff out so quick? Geez, it hasn't even been twenty-four hours."

"Who cares how long it's been?" I wailed. "The problem is that it's out, and I just spent all last night trying to convince Oliver that they'd never publish a story based on one dinky little picture - a picture which proves nothing, by the way."

"You're right. You should call these people up this very instant and set them straight. Just 'cause you're holding hands on the beach, looking suspiciously close to kissing, doesn't mean anything's going on."

I wadded up the paper and threw in into the trash can. "I _hate_ being famous!"

Lilly ignored my outburst and dove to rescue it. "Isn't this what you wanted? Now word is out that you and Mike are a couple. Everywhere you go with him, people will think you're dating. You've got all the excuses in the world to keep Oliver as your boyfriend. You don't even need Sammy anymore."

"_Sammy_." The sound of his name made my insides boil hotter than they did the time Luann spray-painted all my clothes pink so we would "match."

Impulsively I reached for an orange in the fruit bowl and tossed it into the blender. Holding the top down, I turned the blender on high. The orange burst apart and the blades chopped it into a gooey, lumpy pulp. I grabbed a glass from the cupboard and poured the entire contents of the blender into it. With an evil cackle I slammed the glass down on the counter.

Lilly watched with wide eyes.

"That's what's gonna happen to Sammy when I get my hands on him." There. I felt better already.

"Okay, now you're scaring me." Lilly slid down the counter away from me. "Sure it was mean of him to tell on you, but is it really that bad?"

"You haven't read the second paragraph of page three yet, have you?"

Lilly found the page and read out loud. "'Bystander Samuel Forster, star of last year's miniseries _Romeo and Juliet_, reveals that Hannah and Mike have been secretly dating for weeks. He calls their relationship "volatile," "immature," and "lacking real passion," and says her boyfriend is "jealous and unromantic." Forster claims he and Hannah have become quite close, and hints that there may be more in store for them in the future.'" Lilly looked up at me and grimaced. "This is bad, isn't it?"

I laid my palms on the counter and leaned toward her. "Ya think?"

She folded the tabloid up carefully and placed it next to the glass of orange goop.

I sighed heavily. "Lilly, what am I gonna do?"

"Uh…tell Oliver the truth."

"What? I can't do _that_!"

"Of course you can. Here, practice on me." She grabbed a baseball cap lying on the table and put it on backwards. Assuming the slouching posture of a rapper, she spoke in her best Oliver voice. "Yo Hannah, whatup?" She bobbed her head. "Nice hair."

"Lilly!"

"Okay, okay." She took off the hat. "But seriously, you should just be honest with him. He'll understand."

"Sure he'll understand, but then it'll be over." I came around the counter and faced my friend. "I can't lose this chance, Lilly. Mike and Hannah have to stay together until I can make Oliver like me. I'm not giving up."

I wandered into the living room, possibilities running through my mind. "Maybe you're right. Maybe this _is_ what I wanted. If we can just go on a few dates and attend a few concerts without Sammy, Oliver will finally see how much fun he's having with me. I mean, he liked Hannah once. How hard can it be to make him like her again?"

Lilly gave me a disapproving look. "Have you ever thought that maybe _forcing_ him into liking you isn't a good idea?"

Well, she had a point. But what else was I supposed to do?

Robbie Ray came down the stairs and moseyed into the kitchen humming a tune. He greeted us cheerfully. "'Mornin', girls. I had a thought on my way down here that I'd whip up some of my famous double decker egg sandwiches. Any takers?"

"Oooh, yes please!" Lilly went to get herself a plate.

Robbie stopped to inspect the glass of orange pulp. He lifted a curious eye. "Is this some kind of science experiment?"

I dove for the tabloid and leaned onto it with my arm. "Uh…yeah. We're studying the…effects of salt on citrus fruit." I grabbed the salt shaker with my other hand and shook it wildly over the orange.

Robbie didn't look convinced. "How are the results coming?"

"Oh, great." I pushed the tabloid off the counter with my elbow. "The salt makes it…"

"Taste like a grapefruit!" Lilly chimed in.

I knew Dad could smell my lies from half a mile away, and this was no exception. He walked around me and reached for the tabloid.

I stepped on it. "Oh, who wants to read that news anyway? It's just a bunch of useless, irrelevant gossip created for the specific purpose of turning people's minds into mush. You better let me throw it away, Daddy."

He yanked it from under my foot. I tried to steal it from him, but he held it up high. "Now don't that girl look an awfully lot like Hannah Montana." He studied the picture on the front. His eyebrows lifted. "And ain't that the scraggly-haired boy who shows up from time to time to clean out my refrigerator?"

I felt my cheeks burning. "It's not what you think."

"No Bud, I think it's exactly what I think." He took a second glance. "Yup, it sure is. How many times do I got to tell you to wear your shoes when you're down on the beach? The sand crabs bite somethin' awful."

Lilly peered over his shoulder. "Oh, look at that. Bare feet. Shame on you, Miley. You gotta remember to wear your shoes." She tilted her head. "On the other hand, I think it's a great picture. Aren't they cute, Mr. Stewart?"

"Lilly!" I gave her an evil glare.

"I mean, never mind." She sat down.

Robbie put the tabloid down calmly. I wondered why he didn't look surprised. He turned as if nothing was amiss and opened the refrigerator. "I guess I better stock up in here if that boy's gonna be coming 'round more often." He started humming again.

I shrugged. That went well…right?

Robbie ate breakfast with us, then went upstairs to take a shower. Lilly and I were just about to go down to Rico's when Jackson came stumbling through the back door wearing his night goggles. His hair was sticking up and he looked tired.

"Did you stay outside all last night?" I asked.

He walked right past me, circled around the sofa, and collapsed into a chair. "Dang…ninja…squirrel."

"Don't give up." Lilly patted his head. "You were so close last night. Anyone would've thought that shoe was a squirrel. It was an honest mistake."

He kept muttering. "Dang…ninja…squirrel."

I rolled my eyes. "Jackson, get out of here. You smell like wet shoes and –" I sniffed closer. "Is that my perfume? _Jackson!? _What were you doing with my perfume?"

"Oh, that." Lilly blushed innocently. "I told him the fumes would lure Gimpy into his trap."

Jackson got up out of the chair and shuffled toward the back door. "Must…catch…ninja…squirrel." He stepped out onto the porch and shut the door behind him.

I looked over at Lilly, my eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"What?" she squeaked.

"Oh, like you don't know." I crossed my arms. "I sent you home last night to pick out a new shirt, not to camp out on the back porch with Jackson making squirrel traps!"

Lilly lowered her eyes. "He needed my elbow pads."

"For what? Protection from those dangerous flying ninja kicks?"

"Yes." Her voice was very small. "And in case he fell out of the tree."

"What was he doing in a tree?"

"Picking acorns."

"Wait, let me get this straight." I paused for effect. "You gave my brother elbow pads so he could climb a tree to pick acorns for a ninja squirrel that is in fact _not _on the loose, but locked in Oliver's brother's pet cage a mile away?"

"I was just trying to help." She pouted.

"But you _knew_ Gimpy wasn't going to come back."

"Oh, have a heart!" She pretended to wipe a tear from her eye. "It's all he has to live for!" She gave me a little scowl and fled out the front door.

I wondered fleetingly if she was going home to get her knee pads, too.

Oliver was down by Rico's sitting in a beach chair when I found him. He was reading the tabloids, and I noticed right away that the Hannah and Mike article had been cut out of the front page. He had scissors in one hand, and a stack of tabloids were chopped up by his feet.

"Uh, Oliver, what are you doing?" I approached him.

"He's costing me money and messing with my business, that's what he's doing." Rico squirmed in the chair next to him. Somehow Oliver had managed to tie the little devil up. I was mildly impressed.

"Discount papers over here!" Oliver waved one in the air. "It's just a buck fifty, yo my business it ain't shifty, you can buy one as a gifty, and it's all….really nifty!"

A random girl walked up to him and handed him money. She took the tabloid, glanced down at the front page where the picture was cut out, and gave Oliver a dirty look. She threw the paper at him and stole her money back.

"Fine!" Oliver shouted after her. "But you won't find a better deal anywhere! _Anywhere_, I say!"

Yup, this situation required immediate intervention.

I seized the scissors from Oliver's hand. "We need to talk."

"I have everything under control, Miles," he said. "My day is scheduled so that I can reach all the major newsstands in Malibu by nightfall. I even mapped out the driving route. See?" He held up a large piece of paper with scribbles on it. "If you help me we can be done by three o' clock and make it to Lilly's skateboarding competition."

I stared down at him. "This is crazy. You can't cut up all the tabloids in the entire city."

"Why not?"

"Um, let's see…'cause that would be _stupid_!"

Rico wiggled in his chair and kicked his feet, trying to free himself. "You're not gonna get away with this, Oken! You owe me sixty-three dollars and nineteen cents! And two hot dogs!"

We both ignored him. "Listen, Oliver, I have a better idea." I knew we couldn't talk in front of Rico, so I pulled Oliver up out of his chair. "Come with me."

Rico hollered vile threats after us, most of them involving pain and suffering.

"You should've taped his nasty little mouth shut, too," I said.

We stopped under a tree and faced the ocean. The waves were wild today, and a strong breeze whipped up around us. I remembered last night and wondered, as I had many times since then, what would have happened if the reporters hadn't found us. Would he have kissed me again? Or was the look I had seen in his eyes just my imagination?

"Miles, could you please hurry up? This delay is messing up my whole schedule."

I snapped back to the present. Oliver was looking at me impatiently, arms crossed.

"Okay, first we need to establish that _your_ plan is not going to work. Take it from a girl who has tried this approach – the news is going to get out anyway. You can't stop it."

"Fine." He looked down. "But can I keep the scissors? They fit my hand perfectly and they don't pinch like the metal ones."

"Whatever." I handed them back. "Now listen, I know your reputation is important to you, so hear me out. In a situation like this, the best thing to do is play along with it and lay low, just until it all blows over. If we break up now, your name goes down in history as the 'jealous, unromantic' guy who dumped America's favorite teen pop star."

"Way to rub it in," he murmured.

"And not only does your reputation go down the drain, but mine does, too. Everyone will think I'm a cheater who has bad taste in guys, and the moment we break up, Sammy's gonna pounce. I mean, this could be bad for my career."

Oliver's brow wrinkled. "So what do we do?"

"It's simple. We just stick together, make a few appearances, show the press that our relationship is fine. Everything will blow over, and then next Friday when I'm on Collin Lassiter's show, I'll announce the break up. I'll make it nice and sweet like I did with Jackson, and everyone will love it." I elbowed him. "Hmm, what do you think?"

He looked at me long and hard, and something in his eyes made my heart catch. He trusted me, and for a split second I almost told him the truth. But the words wouldn't come out. I couldn't risk it.

"Oliver, you know I didn't mean for this to happen, right?"

His gaze was so intense, I had to look away. "I know," he said softly.

Why did I feel so guilty? It's not like I was lying to him. All of it was true. I was doing the best thing for both of us.

I pushed the feeling away. "So are you in?"

He let out a long breath. "Okay."

And thus our public relationship began.

Everyone was talking about it in school on Monday. They passed around pictures, spread rumors about things they'd "heard" over the weekend, and speculated on how long the relationship would last. It was worse than the buzz with Jackson.

Oliver bore it remarkably well all morning, but when we sat down for lunch in the cafeteria, he cracked. "How can you _stand _people talking about you like that?" he whispered in my ear.

"You just have to remember that they don't know the real you." I patted his shoulder. "It gets easier with time. You just have to roll with it."

Amber and Ashley walked by, fawning over the tabloid picture. "Like, why haven't we noticed him before? He's _sooo_ cute!"

"Does he have an album out?"

"I don't know. I think so. We should buy it."

"Only if the pictures are good. 'Cause I want one to put in my locker."

"I mean, like, look at his hair. I've never seen anyone with hair like that."

"I know! You could just –"

"Run your fingers right through it!" they exclaimed in unison. They looked at each other, grinned, and touched fingers. "Oooh!"

I clenched my fists together. "Oh, they're gonna get it." I started to jump up, but Oliver grabbed my wrist and pulled me down.

"What happened to 'you just have to roll with it'?" He hissed in my ear.

"But…they…I don't…you…" I threw myself onto the table and groaned.

"On the bright side," Oliver said, "at least now I know it's my personality that repulses them." He seemed pleased with this revelation. I had no idea why.

Lilly slid her tray in across from us and sat down. "Hey, so did you hear about Mike and Hannah?" she asked loudly.

Oliver and I glared at her.

She laughed and waved a hand. "Just kidding. Who cares about them? They're just random famous people. Nobody _I _know. Or want to know." She dug into her spaghetti. "So what's up, guys?"

This was going to be a _long_ two weeks.

Rico came strutting into the cafeteria a few minutes later carrying a stack of flyers. "Hey everyone, mark off your calendars, 'cause next Saturday is game night at Rico's!" He tossed the flyers onto tables, stuffed them in students' hands, threw them into the air. "Tickets are five dollars each, and there _will_ be prizes. Only the strongest will survive!"

He came around to our table and sneered at Oliver. "You better bring your mommy, Oken, 'cause you're gonna need her to rescue you when I unveil my Double D50 Annihilator SSG."

"What's a Double D50 Annihilator SSG?" I asked Oliver.

"It's a straw spitting gun," he said, then turned to glower at Rico. "You better bring your blanky, little boy, 'cause my straws are gonna fly, so high they'll hit the bulls eye, over and over again until it makes you want to cry."

Rico's eyes were greedy with revenge. "Bring it on!" He marched off.

Lilly put a meatball in her mouth. "So Oliver, you think _this _is the year you're finally gonna beat Rico at straw-spitting?"

"What, you don't think I can do it?"

"Oh, I _know _you can't do it." She waved her fork in the air. "He's beaten you for the past five years. Last year you surrendered when he started lighting the straw wrappers on fire."

"He was smoking up the place! I couldn't see the targets and I could hardly breathe," he protested. "And anyway, it was against the rules. I should've won by forfeit."

"Well, that's not half as bad as the first year when you had to go to the hospital to have that straw-wrapper ball removed from your left nostril."

I snapped my fingers. "So _that's_ why one is bigger than the other!"

Oliver held his hands up. "Ladies, ladies, calm down please. This year it's going to be different. Rico changed it to a team sport so he could pair up with Rosalita. So all I have to do is find me a partner who can spit a mean straw-wrapper."

He looked back and forth between me and Lilly. Lilly stared at her plate and started humming.

Oliver turned to me. "So Miles, you want to help me bring the little devil down next Saturday?"

Did I want to? Oh, he had no idea. "I am _so _in."

"Great." Oliver smiled at me – a very shy smile – and went back to his French fries.

My stomach did a little flip. This was going better than I had expected. The whole world thought Hannah and Mike were together, I had two weeks of dates to look forward to, and for the first time since I had met him, Oliver had chosen me over Lilly for a sporting event.

What could possibly go wrong now?


	7. Chapter 7

Thank you so much to everyone who's taken the time to review my story! I really appreciate every one of your comments.

This chapter isn't as humorous as the rest - but there comes a point in every story where the drama must take center stage. I hope you like it.

* * *

Part Seven 

I tossed a popcorn kernel into my mouth. "Who needs the movies when you can attend a backstage party at a Kelly Clarkson concert?"

"Yeah," Oliver agreed. "You've got the giant Coke can pyramid over there, the really bad dancers over there, and a couple making out in that bean bag chair."

"Where?"

He pointed. "I don't think they've come up for air in a half hour."

"It looks uncomfortable."

"Not as uncomfortable as _that_." He nodded toward a girl who was bent over backwards walking on her hands and feet, a plastic cup balanced on her stomach.

I wrinkled my nose. "She's gonna be sore tomorrow."

"Or tonight, if she smacks her head into that chair leg."

We both cringed as she collided with the chair.

On the other side of the room a big guy standing by the Coke can pyramid crushed an aluminum can against his head. Everyone cheered.

I looked over at Oliver. He was sitting next to me on a comfy couch, one arm draped lazily around my shoulders. "Remember when you tried to do that once, and you got a big red welt right beside your ear?" I touched the spot with my fingers.

"Man, that was great." He smiled. "That can is still on display on the top of my bookshelf."

"You mean the bookshelf where you're supposed to keep all your books?"

"Hey, let's not insult my intelligence. Everyone knows that books belong on the bottom of your closet, underneath all your clothes and video games. _Duh._"

"You don't play video games."

"Well I would, if my brother hadn't spilled orange juice all over them." He reached across me to grab a handful of popcorn.

I sucked in my breath. That was the third time he'd done that tonight and it was really throwing me off my game. It was almost impossible to flirt with him when he made me this nervous and jittery. So I just sat there babbling about everything and nothing so that I wouldn't have to think about how close he was.

It had been this way for the past ten days. We'd gone on three dates in public places and made appearances at two backstage parties. On each occasion the paparazzi had been all over us, snapping pictures, stopping us to ask questions. New articles were published raving about how great we were together. No one remembered Sammy's spiteful description of our relationship anymore. We were Hollywood's new favorite couple.

Except we weren't really a couple.

"Hey, look at that dude climbing up on the piano with a microphone," Oliver said. "You don't think he's gonna sing, do you?"

The guy belted out a loud burp and laughed.

"Oh, save your dignity," I murmured. "Please don't sing, please don't sing…"

He sang. Tone deaf though he was, the crowd loved it. They threw cheese and crackers at him and applauded.

I leaned against Oliver's shoulder to block my ears from the noise. "At least now we know who's responsible for drinking all those Cokes."

"Oh, there goes his shirt," Oliver said. I started to sit up, but he covered my eyes with his hand. "Honey, you don't want to see that. _None_ of us want to see that."

And heck, with Oliver's hand on my face, I didn't really care if I ever saw again.

"Woah, look at that girl's shoes," Oliver whispered.

A girl with curly red hair was walking toward us. She had big red and white polka-dot sneakers with little pom-poms on the ends of the laces. It looked like something straight out of _Alice in Wonderland_.

"Hey, are you Hannah Montana?" she asked brightly. "I'm Kelly's friend's sister, that's why I'm here. I'm a huge fan of yours. I've always wanted to meet you. Could you autograph my shirt?"

"Uh…sure," I stammered, still distracted by her shoes.

She turned around and I scribbled my name on her back. When she faced me again she was beaming. "Oh, thank you!" She glanced shyly at Oliver. "You must be Mike. I saw an article about you two the other day."

"Whatever they said about me, it's probably not true," Oliver replied.

"Oh, listen to him, he's so _funny._" I kicked Oliver's shin and gave him a warning look.

The redhead was enchanted with us. "You two are so cute. How did you meet?"

Oliver and I exchanged a look. No one had asked us that question before.

"Well…uh, it's a funny story." I laughed. "You see –"

"We met at a shoe store," Oliver volunteered proudly.

If I had been drinking a Coke, I would have spit it all out.

"A shoe store?" The girl put a hand over her heart and sighed. "How romantic."

"Yeah," Oliver said, "I walked into the store one afternoon and there was this blondy sittin' over in a chair talkin' on her cell phone. Yappin' away. I thought, 'pity the soul who's listenin' on the other end.'"

Oh, I was _so_ gonna get him back for this later.

"I went on with my business, tried on a few shoes. After a while she comes strollin' down the aisle with a big blue purse. Whacks me in the head with it."

"Mike, you know that was an accident. I didn't see you there."

He patted my shoulder. "Aww, I know that now, but at the time I thought you did it on purpose." He looked up at the redhead. "So I jumped up and gave her a piece of my mind. We argued back and forth. Then outta nowhere she blurts out, 'I think you're cute.'"

"No, no, no," I interrupted. "What I said was, 'I hate your boot.'"

"But I wasn't trying boots on, Hannah." He smiled at me.

"Well they _looked _like boots."

He nodded. "Fair enough. So anyway, after that I said, 'then let's go out sometime.' She says, 'okay' and writes her number on my arm."

"I think you're getting a little forgetful, Mikey," I challenged, tapping him on the forehead. "What happened was that _you_ wrote your number on _my_ arm."

"Oh, right." He slapped his knee. "And _you_ were the one who couldn't wait to call me back. I hadn't even gotten buckled up in my limo before my phone rang."

I scowled at him. Not fair.

"Wow." The redhead was fascinated. "I hope I get to meet a guy at a shoe store some day."

"Try shopping at DSW. They have great shoes there." I cleared my throat. "I mean, great guys."

"Thanks, Hannah, I will!" She winked at Oliver and skipped off.

I watched her go, and it occurred to me just then what a perfect opportunity I had to test Oliver. I elbowed him playfully. "Hey, so she's kinda cute, isn't she?"

"Polka-dotted shoe girl?" He considered it for a moment. "Redheads are supposed to be temperamental, aren't they?"

"Yeah, but she's definitely too cute to ever lose her temper. I bet I could hook you up with her if you wanted."

His expression clouded a little. "Yeah, maybe," he muttered.

How was I supposed to read _that_?

"Never mind, she's not really your type," I corrected, but it was too late. The mood was ruined.

Oliver and I left the party a half hour later. We snuck out the back way, but even so the reporters found us. We smiled as they took pictures and kept walking. A group of fans screamed at us from behind a yellow taped area.

As we stepped into the limo I wondered briefly what it would be like to date him without all the glitz and glamour. What if it was just Miley and Oliver, no pretenses, no lies?

What would it be like if he just touched me once and really meant it?

"So tomorrow's the big day, hmm?" Oliver broke through my thoughts.

If by "big day" he meant the day all my hopes and dreams were crushed, then yes, tomorrow was the big day.

"I've got to give it to you," he went on. "I didn't think your plan would work, but it did. Oliver Oscar Oken is da man!"

What was wrong with him? He had a pretty girl right next to him and he was congratulating himself on his rise to fame? I would never to my dying day understand boys.

"See you at school tomorrow," Oliver said cheerfully when the limo stopped at his house. "And remember, straw-spitting at Rico's Saturday afternoon! I can't wait to see the little devil bawl like a baby."

He smiled and left – without a word, without a look, without a kiss.

Just like he had every night for the past ten days.

I didn't understand it at all. No matter what I tried, no matter how much I wished, nothing changed.

I complained about it to Lilly Friday afternoon as I was getting ready for my appearance on Collin Lassiter's show.

"Why doesn't he like me?" I moaned. "What does a girl have to do to get his attention? I mean, you'd think he had a brain up there, but if he did, he totally would've come to his senses by now."

Lilly snorted. "And of course if a guy doesn't like you there must be something wrong with _him_."

"That's not what I meant." I reached out for the earrings she was holding. "I just don't understand why everything is the same as it was before Sammy showed up. Oliver treats me the exact same way he always has. I feel like I'm dating my best friend."

"He _is_ your best friend." Lilly picked out a bracelet from my jewelry box and clipped it onto my wrist. "Well…_second _best friend. _Clearly _I come in first. I mean, who else would willingly give up an afternoon of surfing to help you get ready to be pretty and famous on TV? That takes a very special friend. A very _very_ special friend. A first-class, top-notch –"

"Easily-sidetracked friend," I finished for her. "Lilly, focus!"

"Right. What were we talking about again?"

I frowned at her, then turned back to the mirror to check my earrings. "I just wish Oliver would do something so that I can know for sure whether he likes me or not."

Lilly pshawed. "And what have _you_ done to show him that _you_ like _him_?"

I tapped my earrings to make them twirl around. "What do you mean?"

"Miley, he used to be head over heels for Hannah. Then you made it clear to him that you could never see him as more than a friend. How is he _supposed _to react to all this?"

I hadn't ever thought about it that way before. But even if Lilly was right, hadn't I given Oliver plenty of hints? Hadn't I given him enough opportunity?

"See?" Lilly smiled proudly. "I can be deep sometimes."

"Yeah, I didn't see that one coming," I muttered.

"Hey, and there's more, so pay attention." She tapped my arm. "You _really_ shouldn't use that shade of pink on your nails. It makes you look pasty."

I shoved her playfully. "Sure, _now _you tell me."

"Here, hold still and I'll redo them."

Silence fell over us as Lilly worked. I felt sick to my stomach, like I was about to do the one thing I dreaded most in the world. I tried to cheer myself up with happy thoughts – like my upcoming concert Saturday night – but the feeling wouldn't go away.

At last I spoke up in a very soft voice. "I don't know if I can break up with him."

Lilly looked up, concerned. "Miley, you have to. It's the right thing to do."

"I know, but…" My eyes started to sting. Oh, great. I wasn't going to cry about this, was I?

Lilly pulled me into a hug. "No matter what happens with Oliver, you always have me."

I hugged her back tightly.

"For what it's worth," she whispered, patting my back, "I think what you and Oliver have is _already_ pretty great."

Lilly's last words stuck with me all afternoon. They stuck with me when I sat down in a big chair next to Collin Lassiter. They stuck with me when he asked me questions about my latest album and my upcoming tour. They stuck with me when the first audience question was, "How is your relationship going with Mike?"

There was my opportunity. It was wide open. There was no possible way I could answer that question without saying what I had come to say. I had a nice little speech all planned out, and I even took a breath to say it.

But I couldn't.

I knew if I broke up with him now I'd never get another chance to be with him. I didn't want to give up what we'd had the past two weeks. I liked the feel of his arm around my shoulders. I liked the way he stared down any guy who approached us with the intent of hitting on me. I liked it when he jokingly called me "honey," and when he took my hand into his when we walked into a room.

How could I ever go back to just being his friend?

So I did the unthinkable. "We're doing great," I answered with a smile. "Tomorrow is our one month anniversary and he's taking me somewhere nice."

The words were out, and I couldn't take them back. I pushed aside all feelings of guilt, and reveled in the hope of another week or two to persuade Oliver to like me. I hadn't done anything wrong. He wouldn't mind. What was it to him? He was having the time of his life in the spotlight.

These were the words which I used to comfort myself all the way home. I even felt pretty confident when I spotted Oliver walking up to my house from the beach that night.

He strolled in through the back door with a spring in his step. Geez, wasn't he chipper for someone who thought he just broke up with his girlfriend?

"I brought you some leftover pizza for dinner. A bunch of us ordered it and ate it right in front of Rico's. Drove him crazy." He tossed the half-eaten box on the kitchen counter, then turned to me. "So…how'd it go?"

"How'd what go?" I studied my nails. Maybe he'd forget.

"You know…the interview…the big announcement."

I swallowed nervously. "Well, uh…I might have run into a little bit of a problem. Just a little problem, nothing big. You see, the audience…they were just going crazy for Mike and Hannah. They were asking all these questions and screaming how much they loved us. I didn't actually…you know…get the chance to say anything." I looked up to gauge his reaction, then hurried to add, "It wasn't the right time. It would've crushed them to hear that we broke up."

Oliver stared at me blankly, not quite following. "So wait – you didn't tell them?"

I shook my head. "No."

Silence.

"Well, are you _ever_ going to tell them?" His voice rose in pitch. "Miley, how long is this gonna go on? We can't keep dating forever!"

Why not? Why _not_!?

"I know," I said quickly. "Of course not. But it's too soon. We're too fresh in the public eye to break up now."

His eyes fell, but not before I saw the disappointment hidden in their depths. Why was he disappointed? Angry I could understand, but disappointed? It didn't make sense.

"The good news," I continued, keeping my voice light, "is that someone approached me about us doing a photo shoot for their magazine. They want us to come out tomorrow at one o'clock. What do you think? Wouldn't that be fun?"

"Tomorrow?" He frowned. "You mean Saturday afternoon?"

"Yeah. Why? Are you doing something then?"

He looked straight at me, his expression grieved. I almost thought I saw tears in his eyes, but then he blinked and they were gone. "I _was_ going to do something, but I'm not anymore."

He started to walk away, but I reached for his arm. "Oliver, what's wrong?"

"What's _wrong_?" he echoed incredulously. "What's wrong is that my best friend promised she'd help me beat Rico at the straw-spitting contest tomorrow, and then decided to stand me up."

Dang flabbit! I had totally forgotten!

"Oliver, I'm sorry, it just slipped my mind for a minute. But how could I say 'no' to the photo shoot? This is a huge opportunity. It could launch your career. Think about it – you on a magazine cover! The girls will be crushing all over you. Then when you finally _do_ break up with me, viola! You'll be irresistible." I smiled and elbowed him. "Hmm? How do you like that? You'll be the talk of the town. This is _good_ for you."

"_No_," he interrupted forcefully, "you mean this is good for _you._"

"What?"

"You're not doing any of this for me. You're doing it all for you, and you have been since the beginning."

I was so shocked I didn't know what to say.

He met my gaze boldly. "I don't know why I'm surprised. This happens all the time. You always use me whenever it's most convenient for you."

"That's not true! I don't –"

"To chase off guys you don't like, to help you out with your latest scheme, to fix your reputation, to fill in for Lilly when she's not around and you're bored." He shook his head sadly. "Now you're even doing it to get your face on a magazine."

Oh, he was wrong. He was all wrong! How could he think that? I opened my mouth to protest –

"Hey, it's okay," he assured me, his voice softening. "I like helping you out, really I do. But as soon as something better comes along, I get kicked to the curb. What's gonna happen when you meet a guy you really like? You'll find some way to convince me that _now _is the best time for us to break up." He shook his head. "You're my best friend, Miles, but sometimes I don't think I'm yours."

He looked at me for a long moment. I felt keenly the disapproval in his eyes, and I understood: he had expected better of me. Perhaps more than anyone else he saw my shallow ways, and yet he had believed in me. He had believed that for one brief moment in time I would do the right thing, that I would end the nonsense, the fabrications, the lies.

I was truly humbled.

"Oliver…"

"I'm sorry, but I can't pretend to be your boyfriend anymore. Find someone else." He turned to go.

"No, wait!" I started after him. "That's not how it is at all. I can explain!"

"Miles, I really don't want to hear it this time."

And he walked off.

I watched him go, aware of a powerful new feeling welling up inside me. Suddenly it wasn't about winning Oliver as my boyfriend anymore. It was simpler than that. I cared what he thought of me. I couldn't bear thinking he was disappointed in me. I wanted my best friend back.

I collapsed onto the sofa, curled into a ball, and cried.


	8. Chapter 8

Again, thank you! Please keep reviewing!

* * *

Part Eight 

Oliver's little blue-striped straw was no match for the Double D50 Annihilator SSG. Even with help from Jackson and his three-barreled straw-wrapper launcher, it appeared that Rico would win the championship for the sixth year in a row.

"What's the score?" I asked as I sat down on a beach towel next to Lilly to watch.

"Well, hello to you, too." She looked at me crossly. "You haven't answered my phone calls all morning. You better have a good excuse. Like, you know, you were _dying_."

"I was busy."

"Doing what? Putting pink eye shadow over one eye and brown over the other?"

"Oh, did I?" I rubbed at my eyes. "I was distracted."

"I'll say. You don't look like you slept at all."

"I didn't. Oliver and I had a huge fight last night."

"Oh." Lilly thought for a minute. "So _that's_ why he showed up with Jackson instead of you. He said you weren't feeling well."

I hugged my knees miserably.

"He got mad that you didn't break up with him yesterday, didn't he?"

"Yes." I buried my face in my hands. "Lilly, I really messed up. All this time he thought I was _using_ him to get what I wanted. He had no idea I was doing it because I liked him."

"Geez, I wonder why."

"I know, you were right." I sighed. "And now he hates me."

"He doesn't hate you."

"I tried to call him this morning and he wouldn't answer his phone."

"Maybe his mom made him turn it off again," Lilly suggested. "It's true, I definitely think there are less honey bees than there were last year."

"Or maybe he's renounced me as his friend." I nodded toward the straw-spitting hullabaloo. "See how easily I've been replaced? And by my own brother, too. Traitor."

Jackson and Rosalita stepped up to the line and readied their weapons. The referee blew his whistle, and the two of them propelled straw-wrapper balls at the target, which was a kitten confined to a ten-foot radius. The kitten frolicked around and pawed at the balls as they came flying over her head.

Round four: moving targets.

I felt a little bit sorry for the kitten.

"Lilly, why is Jackson still wearing your elbow pads?"

She did her little nervous laugh thing. "What? Those aren't _mine_."

"Oh, come on, they have the yellow zig zag on the side. _You_ added that so that if they ever ran away, you could put up a 'lost' sign with their picture, and everyone would know they were yours."

Lilly looked down sheepishly. "Okay, they're mine. And I _might_ have lent them to Jackson because he _might_ have thought they were comfortable."

"Mmm-hmm, I see." I studied her face. "You're _blushing_!"

"Oh, grow up! They're just elbow pads. It's not like I let him borrow my skateboard, too." She stuffed her chin in her hands and ignored me.

Jackson lost the round by five points to Rosalita. He might have actually won if his straw-wrapper launcher hadn't gotten stuck on the Velcro of his elbow pads.

But I didn't point that out to Lilly.

Oliver replaced Jackson for the fifth and final round. Rico insulted him mercilessly, and Oliver bore it without a word. When the whistle blew, they shot straw balls into bowls of various colored pudding with a ferocity that could have rivaled me and Luann the time we faced off in a cow-milking contest.

I had never seen Oliver so focused on anything. He was so serious, so quiet. He wasn't having fun.

Oliver wasn't having fun for the first time in his life…because of me. But I didn't have the courage to get up on my feet and do anything about it. So I sat stupidly and watched.

Oliver lost the round – and subsequently the entire game – to Rico. The little devil grabbed his trophy and flaunted it around the beach, much to everyone's disgust. Oliver sat down, defeated.

Jackson came to the rescue. "Rico, what's the fun in beating someone when you have an unfair advantage? Wouldn't you rather tote that trophy around knowing you'd won it fair and square?"

Rico yawned. "What's that? Is the whiny little loser daring to challenge the king?"

Jackson grabbed Rico's shirt collar and lifted him off the ground. "Ten o'clock tonight. Rematch. Nothing but straws, straw-wrappers, and our own spit. Be there or I'll wire your trophy to an explosive and blow it up."

"Touch my trophy and you're fired."

"Fire me and I'll chew some bubble gum and stick it on the underside of your counter."

"Mess with my counter and I'll scare off your date tonight."

"You already _did_ that. A-thank you very much."

"Then I'll rub shoe polish all over your car. Pink shoe polish."

Jackson pressed his forehead to Rico's. "Rematch tonight. Or I'll give you a wedgie that'll make your beady little eyes pop out."

Rico suddenly backed down. "Okay, okay," he said nervously.

Jackson let him go, satisfied. He wiped his hands together. "How's that, Oliver? We got ourselves a do-do-do over."

Oliver stood up. "No thanks, but good luck, pal." He clapped Jackson on the back and left.

Wow. It was worse than I'd thought. He was really taking it hard.

I wanted to run down there and tell him exactly how I felt. I wanted to make him understand. But I didn't think it would be enough. I didn't think anything would be enough.

Lilly nudged me. "Go down and talk to him, Miley."

"I can't. He won't even look at me. I really hurt him this time."

"Uh-huh, and what are you gonna do about it?"

"The only thing I can do."

"Which is…?"

"I'm going to break up with him at the concert tonight. Better yet, I'm going to tell everyone that it was all a lie. That Mike doesn't have girlfriends and that I made it all up to discourage a crazy fan."

Lilly frowned. "And you think that's going to fix everything?"

"Not everything, but at least then maybe Oliver will talk to me."

"He might talk to you now if you try."

"No, he won't."

Lilly snorted at my stubbornness. "If you tell everyone it was a lie, you could get some seriously bad press. It'll be worse than the time they put Lola in the 'what not to wear' column. I mean, come on, orange horizontal stripes and pink sequences totally go together."

"I don't care about the press, Lilly. It's the right thing to do."

"Fine, have it your way." She tilted her chin up. "You want to know what _I _would do?"

"Not unless _you _would stop talking."

"I would just tell him you like him. Sometimes you have to take a chance and go after what you want. I mean, if I had been brave enough to get back up on that balance beam after I fell off and twisted my pinky toe, I'd be a world-class gymnast today."

"When did you ever take gymnastics?"

"When I was three."

"And this is relevant because…?"

"Because if I _had_ gone after what I wanted, I'd be a famous gymnast. Now I'm just a skater girl."

I didn't even try to make sense out of that.

"That's right, Miley. You'd be riding in _my_ limo. Now stop dillydallying and go get that boy!"

"Lilly, I can't! You don't understand!" I stood up angrily.

"What's there to understand? You're making this more complicated than rocket science. Or…whatever it is they do at space camp." She looked up dreamily. "When I was a kid I always wanted to go to space camp…until my mom told me that it wasn't really in space."

"Lilly, goodbye."

"Wait – I haven't told you the story about the bug in my mom's chicken casserole last night! Where are you going?"

"To order up two really big platters of salmon rolls. I'll see you at the concert."

When I called the sushi place to put in my order, the guy on the other end gave me some trouble.

"That's right, Mr. Nagano," I explained for the fifth time. "I want the first platter to spell 'sorry' and the second one to spell 'Oliver.' No…O-l-i-v-e-r. One 'l'. And make the 'O' capital. What? How can that be extra charge? All you have to do is arrange the salmon rolls so that they spell letters. Hey, and do you have any egg rolls? Throw a few of those in, would you? What about marshmallows, got any of those…? How can you not have marshmallows? Every sushi place I've ever been to has marshmallows… I should complain to your manager. Put him on the phone now... Well, then I'm gonna need a comment card. You know what, let me just take back my whole order… What's that? Oh, thank you Mr. Nagano, that's so sweet of you to go find some for me. Let me give you the address to deliver it to. What, you don't deliver, either? What kind of restaurant _is_ this…? Aww, thank you. Pleasure doing business." I gave him the address and hung up.

Guilt ate away at me all afternoon, and by the time I got to the concert I was more miserable than I'd been the night before, if that was possible. The more time that stretched without talking to Oliver, the more convinced I became that he never had liked me and never would. I was sure if I told him the truth he would only laugh in my face.

So the only thing that really mattered now was that he forgave me and I got my friend back. That was my goal, that was the whole reason I was here tonight – to pave the way for forgiveness.

Someone pounded on my dressing room door as Lilly and I were getting ready. I was so startled I jumped. Lilly shrieked.

"A delivery for Miss Montana," an attendant announced.

"Geez, do they have to be so loud?" Lilly hissed.

"Come in," I said.

The door opened – and a tall blond-haired guy holding a rose stepped inside.

_Sammy_.

I would have fainted dead away if Lilly hadn't caught me round the waist and held me up.

"What are you _doing_ here!?" I breathed. I hadn't seen him in two weeks. I had hoped he'd given up by now. Apparently he hadn't.

"Oooh, punch bowl guy returns." Lilly gave him a once over. "Spooky."

Sammy held the rose toward me. I noticed that the petals had withered and dried. "You dropped this on the beach," he said. "'That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.'"

Where was security? How had he gotten backstage? "You're not supposed to be here," I warned, holding onto Lilly and inching away from him.

He followed us. "You came without your boyfriend tonight, Hannah. Where is he?"

"He's uh…he's coming later."

"Yeah, take that, Romeo," Lilly threatened.

"You're lying." Sammy stared me down with his gleaming eyes. "You broke up with him. I knew you wouldn't last."

I felt clammy. Sammy was making me nervous. How did he know that? And where the heck was that button I could push for security?

"I'll be waiting for you tonight." Sammy placed the rose on an end table. "'This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath, may prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.'" He smiled eerily and disappeared through the doorway.

I blinked. Had that really happened?

"Yeah, you better run!" Lilly started after him, arms flexed. "I've got a belt, a hairpin, a pencil, and heels – and I'm not afraid to use them!" She stopped at the door, shut it, and turned around. "Woah, you were right about the Shakespeare quoting thing. Very creepy."

Suddenly I was afraid to do what I had come to do tonight. When I got up on stage and announced to the whole world that Mike and Hannah had broken up, Sammy would be sitting there rejoicing. And when it was all over, he'd be after me like he'd been the first day I met him at the Save-The-Whales charity event.

But this wasn't about Sammy. This was about Oliver, and he meant more to me than my fear. Sammy could quote Shakespeare all he wanted and chase after me until my dying day, but I would never again give Oliver reason to think I was using him for my own selfish purposes.

The curtains rolled back and Hannah Montana took center stage. I sang through the program by rote, hardly conscious of a thing I did or said. All I could think about was the last look Oliver had given me before he walked away. It gave me courage.

"Thank you all!" I shouted to my cheering fans after the last song had been sung. "Before you go tonight, I have something I want to say, something I should have said a long time ago."

The audience could tell by my tone that it was serious. A low vibrating hush settled over the concert hall. I steeled myself to continue. "Most of you know that Mike Standley and I have been dating for a few weeks now. And if you don't know that, you need to get out more." I chuckled nervously.

Laughter rose up from the crowd. Some fans started chanting "Hannah and Mike, Hannah and Mike." It made me nauseous.

I held up my hand to quiet them. "I have to tell you the truth tonight, guys. 'Cause for the past two weeks, you've been believing a lie. I wish I could take it back, because I hurt someone who's really important to me. And take it from Hannah Montana, _nothing_ feels good about hurting someone you care about. So I'm here tonight to come clean. The truth is that Mike and I haven't been dating for the past month. I only started that lie because –"

My microphone went dead, and no one heard the rest of my sentence. I frowned and tapped the speaker, but it wouldn't come back on. Annoyed, I turned around to look for someone else's mike –

And saw Oliver walking toward me on stage.


	9. Chapter 9

This is it, folks! Enjoy!

* * *

Part Nine 

Oliver stopped right in front of me. Our eyes met, and in that brief moment I saw that he had already forgiven me. Completely.

"What are you _doing_ here?" I whispered. My heart was beating so fast I could hardly speak.

"I got your 'sorry Oliver' salmon platter," he whispered back, "so I thought I'd come sit back stage with Lola and listen to the end of your concert."

No way. Was that _really_ all it took? Two platters of salmon rolls and we were best friends again? Hadn't he been _way_ mad at me?

Oliver looked over his shoulder and then back to me, his eyes narrowed. "Guess who had the gall to come up and thank me for breaking up with you so that he could have you all to himself?"

I didn't even need to guess.

"Let me tell you somethin'." Oliver leaned toward me. "No one – especially not Romeo – messes with _my_ friends."

He walked past me and grabbed a new microphone from my bass player. He faced the audience. "Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Mike Standley!"

They roared and applauded as if I'd never announced a breakup. They loved him already.

"Hannah is right," he said. "We haven't been dating for a month. We've been dating for six months, and we lied about it to cover up the fact that we'd been keeping secrets from our families. But today, in honor of our six month anniversary, I'm gonna dish out some freaky fresh fun right here on this stage. And Hannah apologizes ahead of time for whatever comes out of my mouth."

Oliver glanced back at me and smiled. I could have cried. I _did_ cry.

"Hit it, Kevin!" Oliver cued the percussionist.

Oh dear God, he wasn't going to rap, was he?

"Come on guys, let's get this party started. Make some noise, this ain't for the fainthearted. Get on your feet, 'cause this song is uncharted –"

I stepped up to the microphone and interrupted him. "Everyone cheer for Mike before he is departed!"

What? Someone had to put him out of his misery.

The audience was completely enthralled. They started chanting "Mike" over and over again as he bowed and graciously turned to leave.

I put a hand on his arm. He looked down at me and grinned. "You can get me back for that later."

Heedless of anything but my eternal gratitude for what he'd done, I threw my arms around his neck and hugged him.

"Thank you," I whispered.

His arms tightened around me. Then he released me and stepped away. "Let's get out of here before Sammy finds you, eh?"

Ironically enough, it was us who found Sammy. We walked into my dressing room and there he was, tied to a chair with an elbow pad strapped over his mouth. Two policemen stood beside him taking notes. Lilly and Jackson were doing the talking.

"And then I saw him sneaking along the back wall over there humming the theme from Star Wars," Jackson said.

"Yeah, not so much Shakespeare when you're on the run with a bag of loot, eh?" Lilly added, hands on her hips.

"What'd he do?" I asked them.

"Fake ID, trespassing, stalking…" one of the policemen began.

"And stealing," the other finished. "Sherlock Holmes and Watson here caught him leaving your dressing room with these." He held up a pair of silver Jimmy Choo heels.

Yup, those were mine.

"We've been getting calls about his suspicious activity for the past two weeks. We finally caught him red-handed."

I felt a certain sense of vindication, knowing Sammy would probably end up behind bars for a few days.

Jackson patted the elbow pad over Sammy's mouth. "Like how that feels, buddy? Those babies are versatile _and _breathable."

One of the officers gave Jackson a warning look. "Please take that thing off his face. It looks ridiculous."

"Yeah, Jackson, what were you thinking?" Lilly rolled her eyes.

The moment his mouth was free, Sammy spoke. "'Is love a tender thing?'" he quoted bitterly. "'It is too rough, too rude, too boisterous; and it pricks like thorn.'"

Eh, I let him have it. Every villain needs a good last line, right?

Lilly babbled nonstop the entire drive home. She touched on every subject imaginable – from curly Q French fries to platypuses to bubble wrap. I didn't know if I was more annoyed or grateful that neither Oliver or I could get a word in edgewise.

The limo stopped at Oliver's house first. "Miles," he said, "I'm sorry I yelled at you last night. Friends help each other no matter what, and I should've stuck with you to the end. Especially knowing that Sammy was out there."

I took his hand and squeezed it. "Thanks."

He held my gaze a moment longer, and it seemed as though he wanted to say something else. But he didn't. He stepped out of the limo and walked away.

So Oliver and I were back to normal again. That was good, right? That was what I'd set out to accomplish today.

But if that's all I wanted, why did I feel so sad?

When the limo reached my house Lilly raced inside chanting, "I've _really_ got to go!" and Jackson made some comment about a new ninja squirrel trap he wanted to test out. I went inside to fetch my guitar, then settled out on the back porch under the stars.

It was a pretty night. I could hear the waves breaking in the distance, and feel the warm coastal breeze.

Why couldn't I just tell Oliver I liked him? Lilly was right. I was such a wimp. How could a girl like me – who could get up on stage in front of thousands of people and sing – not have the guts to tell a guy she liked him?

Tomorrow. Tomorrow I would march right over to his house, knock on his door, and tell him everything.

I _would_ do it. And I wouldn't think about the consequences.

Tomorrow.

I strummed a few strings on my guitar. The chord progression came naturally, easily. Writing songs was like breathing. I could do it no matter how I was feeling inside, and it took no effort at all. The words and melodies always came to me.

Okay. I have a confession to make. I didn't tell anyone because…well, because it's private. Last night I didn't sleep a wink because I was up writing a new song. And don't give me that look. I didn't _start out_ intending to write a song for Oliver. I wanted to write a really depressing song about a breakup. I wanted to use dark, moody words, a low minor key, and some seriously discordant electric guitar solos.

But when the lyrics started flowing, they had Oliver written all over them, and they weren't discordant or depressing. I let them flow, and before I had the foggiest idea what had happened, a song appeared.

A song for Oliver.

But of course I wasn't going to sing it for anyone, least of all him. No, it was just a song for me to sing in quiet moments when I was alone.

Like now.

I half sung, half whispered the words as I played along.

_"This…is for the time you saw me_

_Sittin' all alone_

_And came and said hello_

_And made me laugh_

_And said you'd be my friend forever_

_"This…is for the time you loved me _

_But you didn't know _

_And when I spilled the truth _

_You didn't run _

_You took me in your arms and held me_

_"For all the times you stayed around _

_All the times you got me through _

_For all the times you lent a hand _

_This song is for you_

_"Don't think I never noticed _

_Don't think I didn't care _

_I'm here now to tell you __I always saw you standing there_

_"And every plea for help _

_Every desperate cry _

_Every crazy scheme _

_Every bold-faced lie _

_Was only so I'd have the chance to kiss you one more time_

_"This…is for the time you saved me _

_From a fated song _

_I forgot the words _

_But then you sang them _

_Even though I'd let you down_

_"This…is for the time you cheered me _

_When I fought with my best friend _

_You let me paint your nails _

_And brush your hair _

_You played along and made me smile_

_"For all the times you kept my secret _

_All the times you saw and knew _

_For all the times you stood by me _

_This song is for you_

_"Don't think I never noticed _

_Don't think I didn't care _

_I'm here now to tell you I always saw you standing there_

_"And every plea for help _

_Every desperate cry _

_Every crazy scheme _

_Every bold-faced lie _

_Was only so I'd have the chance to kiss you one more time_

_"Now we're stuck in this beautiful mess _

_I didn't plan it but I feel so blessed _

_I wish that you could know _

_I'm sorry it didn't show _

_I'd give anything if only I didn't have to let you go_

_"Don't think I never noticed _

_Don't think I didn't care _

_I'm here now to tell you I always saw you standing there_

_"And every small request _

_Every big demand _

_Every wild tale _

_Please just understand _

_Was only so I'd have the chance to kiss you one more time_

_"Don'tcha know _

_Can'tcha tell _

_I just want to kiss you one more time."_

The last note faded. I sat there in the silence, hardly even thinking, just letting the glorious feelings of the past two weeks wash over me. I didn't know if I'd ever feel them again.

"Miley?"

My breath caught. Oh God, tell me he didn't hear all that.

Oliver stepped onto the porch from the shadows.

I was almost speechless. Almost. "Oliver, what are you doing here?" I jumped up and clutched my guitar to my chest.

He was looking at me oddly, as if he was trying to figure something out, but couldn't. "I came to ask if you wanted to help me out with the straw-spitting rematch tonight. I didn't remember it until I got home."

Maybe he didn't hear the song. Maybe he didn't hear the song. My heart pounded faster.

"Did you write that song?" he asked hesitantly.

Or maybe he did.

"Oh, no no no, it's just something I heard on the radio the other day," I stammered. Oh, come on! Was I _really_ that much of a wimp? "I mean…yes…?" I grimaced.

Oliver's expression was unreadable. He stared at me solemnly, and the crease on his brow deepened.

Standing there in front of him, face to face, I found the courage to speak. "Oliver, I know sometimes I take you for granted, but this time it wasn't like that at all. I only kept begging for your help because…well, because I liked being your girlfriend."

His eyes widened. "You did?"

"Yeah." I couldn't look anymore. I stared at my toes.

He didn't move or say anything for a very long time. Every second that ticked by worsened my condition. My hands shook. My stomach flip-flopped all over the place. Finally I dared to lift my eyes again.

He was still watching me with those big dark eyes. Only now I saw that he understood. He understood everything.

"Is this the part where you tell me you don't feel the same way and ask if we can still be friends?" I braced myself for the worst.

Something altogether beautiful flickered in his eyes. "No," he said simply. "This is the part where I kiss you again."

And without hesitation he took my face in his hands and pressed his lips to mine.

It felt as though everything good and lovely and wondrous came alive in that kiss. He was so soft, so eager. The feel and taste of him was thrilling. I lost myself, buried somewhere deep beneath feelings I'd never dreamed I had.

My guitar slipped from my grasp, and I stepped over it into his arms. Nothing in the world felt as good as this.

At length I pulled my mouth from his. "Oliver, so what was up with all that 'I have a reputation' nonsense, and why did you act like Hannah was the last person in the world you wanted to date?"

"Look who's talking, miss 'please save me from Sammy' and 'I bet I can hook you up with her if you want.'"

I shoved his arm. "Come on, like you really had no idea I liked you."

"And like you really had no idea _I _liked _you_. Geez, I even kissed you and you didn't get it."

It didn't really matter to me anymore. I slid my arms around his neck and brought his head down to mine. The butterflies were flying tonight!

Oliver pulled away after a moment. "By the way, I didn't really mean all that about girls not liking flowers and poetry."

I rolled my eyes. "Sure you did."

"No, I know you like all that romantic stuff, so I'm gonna give it my best shot."

Oh, this oughta be good. "Oliver, you don't have to be romantic."

"But I can do this, watch."

He let go of me and walked around the back side of the house. I followed curiously. He stopped by my mom's old rose bush and stuck his hand into it to grab a flower.

"Oww!" He withdrew his hand sharply.

I burst out laughing. "Oliver, roses have thorns. Don't you know that?"

"Of course I do," he said defensively. More carefully this time, he tried to cut through one of the stems with his fingers. "Ouch. Dang flowers."

I watched in a state of growing amusement as he fussed and fiddled with the rose bush. He was so preoccupied with what he was doing that he didn't notice when his foot caught on the garden hose. He tried to move, but quickly realized he was stuck. Bending over, he tried to untangle himself. The situation was helpless. He only succeeded in wrapping himself with the hose.

"Don't worry, Miles," he assured me. "This is not a problem." He reached for the rose he had nearly freed, and as he pulled it loose, he lost his balance and tumbled over.

I couldn't stop laughing.

"A little help here?" He looked up at me pitiably.

I kneeled beside him. He offered me the rose, and I took it. I remembered the rose Sammy had given me on the beach, and how the stem had been free of thorns.

I decided then that the only true rose was a rose with thorns.

"Oliver," I said with a smile. "I think you should just stick to being funny."

"Maybe you're right," he conceded.

I leaned down and kissed him gently. Almost that instant a spray of water shot up into the air.

"Hey!" I jumped back, shielding myself from the wet drops.

The sprinklers were on.

"Oh! Sorry 'bout that." Robbie Ray came strolling around the corner. "I sure didn't see you there. Is that Oliver tangled up in my garden hose?"

"_Dad_." I crossed my arms. "I'm kinda busy."

"Now honey, you know you don't got to tie that boy up to get him to kiss you." He walked past us shaking his head. "I'm just gonna be inside, right by that window over there. When you're done out here, would you turn off the faucet? Remember, too much water ruins the grass. Thanks darlin'." He disappeared through the back door.

I was too happy to be mad at him. Laughing, I helped Oliver out of the garden hose. We turned the faucet off and went to stand on the porch.

"So does this mean that Hannah and Mike can stay together?" I asked.

"I don't know." Oliver scratched his chin doubtfully. "Mike doesn't really have girlfriends."

I punched his arm.

"Ow!"

Jackson came running through the yard screaming. He was wearing his night goggles and elbow pads, and had a firewood prodder in his hand.

Behind him ran a little squirrel with a crippled paw.

Lilly brought up the rear. "Gimpy, cutie pie, come back here, I've got an acorn for you." She waved it in the air. "Be nice to him, Gimpy. He's defenseless against you. Hey, put that stick down!" Her voice got louder and she ran faster. "Stop kicking him! Jackson, _duck!_"

The three of them disappeared around the house.

Oliver and I looked at each other.

"You want to go down to Rico's and spit some straws?" Oliver asked.

"Oh, yeah. The little devil's going down!" I high-fived him.

Laughing, we ran down to the beach.

The End

* * *

P.S. I have ideas for a sequel so if you want more, let me know! 


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